


Magic Of Torchwood

by caz251



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Torchwood
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-02-10
Updated: 2017-04-18
Packaged: 2017-11-28 20:30:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 21
Words: 50,001
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/678594
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/caz251/pseuds/caz251
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ianto Jones was not just the Torchwood Archivist he was much more than that, he was a wizard, a Slytherin and a friend of Lily Evans. When Ianto finds out where her son is living he takes him into his home and makes him his son.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I don't own Torchwood or Harry Potter.

Ianto Jones was a man that was always seen as calm and composed, except by those who knew him intimately, like his boss, Captain Jack Harkness or who had seen him in life threatening danger, like the other members of the team, Owen, Gwen and Toshiko. Ianto’s calm façade was what the team as a whole hid behind, he was their front although Jack was their leader. Ianto ran their decoy tourist office, cleaned up for them, filed and researched objects, stopped others from finding out about them, and saved them all from the death that would come from drinking Owens' coffee. He was simply the glue that held Torchwood 3 together.

It was no surprise then that when Jack disappeared a few hours after coming back to life again, Ianto was put in charge by the rest of the team. Ianto reluctantly took over as the head of Torchwood, even though his personal life had just fallen apart, Jack having been his lover. He was not in charge for long though as a week after Jack had disappeared, he returned. It had been six months now since Jack had been away with the Doctor, the team only knew that he was away trying to figure out why he couldn’t die, though both Ianto and Owen knew of the year of torture and constant death he suffered. Ianto knew because it was him who held Jack through his nightmares and Owen because he was his Doctor, the girls however were kept in the dark for their own peace of mind. Jack and Ianto’s relationship had progressed since he came back, and Jack had even moved out of the hub and into Ianto’s large apartment.

Ianto was at this point however annoyed, he had been standing in this queue for about five minutes and no-one had moved yet. He’d only come in to buy milk and coffee beans, but as it was a few weeks from Christmas, the place was packed. In front of him were two police women, talking about something that caught his interest. Apparently, one of them had worked in Surrey, England before being transferred to Cardiff, she had been looking into a case about the abuse of a little boy, when everyone on the case had suddenly forgot all about it except her. When she tried to mention the case to her commanding officer she was then transferred from that station, to one in another country.

To Ianto it sounded like someone had done a bad job of a retconning, having forgotten someone. Before he could think on it further, his phone rang, looking at the caller ID he saw that it was Owen, great. “Hello, what do you want, Owen?”, he answered, trying not to sound annoyed, knowing that Owen probably called to get him to pick up some cakes or something.

“Ianto, are you alright, you’ve been a while and Jack wants to know if your okay. Jack and I are about to head out to Splott, there is another Weevil wandering about, Tosh is staying here though, we should be back in an hour.”, Owen said.

“Yes, I’m fine, I’m stuck in a queue trying to get the coffee, I’ll see you when you get back then, listen Owen, remember when Jack gave Gwen the B67 and she fought it, what are the chances of that happening, I mean is it possible for it to happen if you had no knowledge of anything having happened before you passed out.”, Ianto asked.

“I’m not sure, I’ll think about, have you got something then, you seem to have got yourself hooked with something.”, Owen answered.

“I don’t know, maybe, I’ll see you and Jack later, maybe Tosh might know something, Bye.”, Ianto finished before hanging up. In the time he had been on the phone, the queue had moved and he was next to be served.

He quickly paid for his purchases and hurried after the two police officers, catching up with them as they neared his car. Calling after them he asked if he could have a moment of their time. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to eavesdrop, but I heard what you said when in that queue about the little boy. I was wondering if you could perhaps tell me more, the boys name and maybe your contact details, so I can get in touch with you if I need to.”, he said.

“I’m PC Cathy Davies, I’m sorry, I can’t just give information about a case to anyone. I don’t even know your name.”, she said.

“Oh, right, sorry, I’m Ianto Jones, I’m with Torchwood. Do you want to see some ID.”, he said, as he pulled his identification out of his pocket. PC Davies looked at his identification for a moment before replying, “Alright, I live a few blocks from here, if we take a walk to my flat I can give you my file on the boy.”

Ianto nodded, “Thanks, this is my car though so I might as well give you a lift, it will be quicker all round.”

PC Davies agreed and before long Ianto was back in his office behind the tourist office, reading through the file she had given him on the little boy, Harry Potter. The information that the police had gathered about his family, from the teacher who had reported the abuse, was that he stayed with his aunt, uncle and cousin, his parents having died in a car crash. Having already decided to help the boy, with or without Jack’s permission, he did his own search for information about him on the databases, to add to his own knowledge of the child.

What he found was that the little boy was the saviour of the wizarding world, yes Torchwood knew of the wizarding world, even if it did specialize in aliens, and usually stays out of their business. Minster Fudge doesn't like them because Torchwood holds more power than the ministry and because they are 'only' muggles. His parents were James Tiberius Potter and Lillian Calah Potter nee Evans, James’ family being pure-blooded for centuries and Lily, a muggleborn. His godmother was interesting though, Alice Jane Longbottom nee Cooper, turns out to be the younger sister of their very own, Gwen Cooper. 

What really intrigued Ianto though was Harry’s great-grandfather on his mother’s side, Lily Evans was only adopted into the Evans family, her mother died in childbirth and her father had died the month preceding her birth. Lily Potter was in fact a Harkness, Jack’s granddaughter. He gathered all the information that he had on the child, ready to give to Jack when he arrived back, knowing that he would need Jack’s help to get Harry out of the care of his abusive ‘aunt’ and ‘uncle’.

Ianto knew however that even if Jack refused to help, he would remove Harry anyway, not because he was the saviour of the wizarding world, but because he was Lillian’s child. A fact not commonly known about Ianto was that he was a wizard, his family knew of course, as well as Jack, Tosh and Owen, but all his other friends, his muggle ones at least, had no idea. Ianto had gone to school with Harry’s parents, and was sorted into the same house as Lily, Slytherin. Although most people, i.e. the wizarding public, or sheep, believed Lily to have been in Gryffindor, this was not true, she was the Slytherin Queen.

Lucius Malfoy had left Hogwarts as Ianto, Lily and Severus, their other best friend, entered their fifth year, the position of the Head within the Slytherin house, known as King or Queen, should have gone to his betrothed Narcissa, but she denied the responsibility handing the title to Lily. The title could have gone to either himself, Severus or Lily, they had always been a brilliant team, each with their own talents for infiltrating the other houses, before Lily became royalty they were known as the Silver Trio. Severus always knew what was happening in Slytherin, as well as the staff room, he himself with his quiet and studious nature was great for infiltrating the Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws. Lily however was the ultimate snake, in that she was able to hide in lions clothing, she infiltrated the Gryffindors, she proved herself as being worthy to be crowned, and she became their Queen, Queen Lillian.

Entering the main part of the hub where Toshiko was sitting in front of some new program she was making, he put the file on his desk to give Jack.

“Hey Tosh, what are you doing? I take it that not much is happening today?”, Ianto asked.

Toshiko turned to face Ianto before speaking, “Hey, just a new security program I’m trying to debug. I don’t think there is anything, Jack and Owen should be back any minute though, they lost the weevil, but were going to bring back some lunch to save you from ordering some.”

Before Ianto could reply the door rolled open revealing Jack and Owen carrying bags of food. They made their way straight to the board room, so grabbing the file for Jack to read Ianto followed, Tosh only seconds behind him. As he sat down Ianto gave the file to Jack, “I suppose Owen put to you my query from earlier. I overheard two policewomen talking and from what one was saying it sounded like she had been retconned and had remembered or she had been forgotten about and missed the dose of retcon.”

Jack nodded to him as he flicked through the file, “Well, I decided to find out what they had been working on to find out why they had been retconned and by whom. What I found however was a history of abuse to a young boy of five, Harry Potter, so it’s not a case of someone resisting retcon, it’s someone has been missed when the memory charms were being done.”

Owen looked up from his Chinese at this point, “You mean this kids being abused and someone else is covering it up. Do we know who or why?” If there was one thing Ianto and Owen had in common it was their hatred towards child abusers.

Ianto nodded, “Yes, someone’s covering it up. As for the who and why I can only guess. The who, I would say would be the same person who his trying to portray his mother as the perfect Gryffindor, Albus Dumbledore. As for why, the only thing I could come up with was to make him idolise him for saving him from the abuse, by allowing him to attend Hogwarts.”

“So, what are we going to do about this? I mean can we do anything about it?”, Toshiko stated.

“I’m getting him out of there no matter what, with Jack’s help it should be a lot easier due to his relation to him, but even without your help he’s going home with me.”, Ianto stated, in a tone that the rest sitting at the table knew not to argue with.

“Of course we’re getting him out of there, Yan. Tosh, I need you to draw up some adoption papers please, Yan, can you deal with the magical papers please. Then Ianto and I will go and collect him.”, Jack answered.

Toshiko and Ianto both left to deal with adoption papers, Jack and Owen left in the board room. As Owen was about to leave to start on his paperwork, Jack spoke, “Right, while we are away, once you and Tosh finish any paperwork, can you give this place a quick tidy, then head over to ours.”

When Owen nodded he continued, “I need you to furnish the spare room for a five year old boy, charge everything to the torchwood card and I’ll deal with it later, get some toys, books, etc, you know, kids stuff. And if you could work out roughly what size he is from that file and get him a few outfits. We should only be a few hours, but I’ll need you to do a full medical check for me when we get back.”

They spoke for a few more minutes before Ianto came back with both sets of adoption papers, Tosh following behind him. As Ianto put the papers in his briefcase Jack spoke to Toshiko, “Right, Owen knows what I want the pair of you to do, no fighting whilst we’re away. Oh and can one of you phone Gwen and let her know what’s happening.”

They nodded as he stepped up behind Ianto putting his arms around his waist for him to apparate them both. When he took in his new surroundings, Jack found himself to be in the centre of Surrey, raising an eyebrow at Ianto, he was pulled into a small café.

“One thing you need to know about the Dursley family is that they don’t like anything abnormal. So we are going to hire a car and drive to their house, because if I was to apparate us there, we wouldn’t get in the front door.”, Ianto said as he ordered two teas to go.

Owen and Toshiko finished their paperwork, not that there was much, before cleaning the hub and heading over to Jack and Ianto’s flat. Toshiko quickly tidied up, something that only took a few minutes due to Ianto’s magic and obsessive compulsive behaviour, whilst Owen entered the spare room. The room was painted a pale blue with a royal blue carpet, perfect for a little boy, quickly taking a mental note of what he would need to buy.

Entering the living room, he noticed Tosh sitting on the couch on the phone to Gwen, “No Gwen, it’s alright we’re fine, Jack and Ianto have gone to pick him up, you just enjoy the rest of your trip and we’ll see you on Monday.”

Owen sat down to wait for her to finish the phone call before speaking, “What I was thinking of doing was, if we both go to buy his furniture, then you come back here and wait for it to be delivered, whilst I go buy him some clothes and toys. How good are you at painting? I was thinking of getting some of that paint that when it dries is like a chalkboard for the bottom half of one wall.”

Tosh quickly agreed and they spent the next few hours setting up the room for a five year old child. When they were finished the bottom half of one wall was painted to be a chalkboard, the ceiling had been painted with some star constellations. The bed, bookshelves, chest of drawers, desk and bedside table were made of pine, the bed made up with blue linen. A blue swivel chair sat pushed under the desk, a blue beanbag at the other side of the room, the drawers had been filled, the top two with socks and underwear, the others with a few tops, jumpers and trousers. A pair of black shoes sat next to a pair of Nike trainers on the pine shoe rack next to it, the bookcase had been placed under the window that was covered by blue curtains, and had a few books on fairytales and other children’s stories. In one corner of the room sat an art chest, also made of pine that was full of paper, paint, chalks, pens, etc, and sitting on the bed was a large brown teddy bear.


	2. Chapter 2

As they pulled up into the drive of No. 4 Privet Drive, Ianto spoke, “Jack, let me deal with this ok. I know what Petunia is like; if we act like she’s in the wrong she’ll just get defensive.”

Jack nodded as he exited the car and rung the doorbell, a large boy opened the door and stared at them blankly. “Can you get your mum for us, please?” Jack asked. The boy stared at them then nodded, waddling away calling, “Mummy, men at the door for you.”, as he made his way back to the TV.

Petunia Dursley left the kitchen to answer the front door, standing on her doorstep were two men, one in a suit and the other military attire. Looking at them she spoke, “Yes, can I help you gentlemen.”

Ianto taking the lead spoke, “Mrs. Dursley, I am Euan Williams and this is Brent Smith, we are from a specialist agency within the government, can we come in we need to speak to you, but would rather not do it on the doorstep.”

Petunia seemed to weigh up the pros and cons before nodding and showing them into the kitchen, where she told them to sit down and she made them some tea. Sitting down she asked, “What is it that you wanted to speak to me about?”

Ianto smiled politely, “Mrs. Dursley, we have heard some stories about your nephew being different; we run a program in which we try to reverse or at least contain this abnormality so they are not a danger to society. We were wondering whether you would be interested in us taking your nephew out of your hands.”

Petunia looked scared at first someone knew her secret then grateful, “Yes, I would, it’s so hard to try and stop the neighbours from noticing his abnormality, he seems to flaunt it. What do I need to do?”

Ianto opened his briefcase as he explained, “This program is not widely known about nor would most of the general public agree with this method. What you would need to do is sign young Harry over to us; we adopt the children, and then try to correct them. The only issue with this is you would the have no legal recourse if you change your mind, as well as no access to your nephew.”

Nodding as she signed the spaces she had to sign Petunia answered, “I think this is for the best, we are unable to help him and we just want the best for him of course.” She then went to collect Harry

Petunia came back into the room with a small boy following behind her. The little boy looked at the two men, but upon seeing a man in a nice suit with papers on the table and a briefcase he began to shake violently. “Please, Aunt Petunia, I’ll be good, don’t send me to an orphanage. I promise I’ll be good.”

“Harry, Harry, your not going to an orphanage”, Petunia tried to calm him with no effect. Seeing the trouble Petunia was having to calm the child down, Jack sunk down to his knees so he was nearer Harry’s height and whispered to him, “Harry, I’m Jack and this is Ianto, we’re not here to take you to an orphanage, your going to come and live with us.”

Harry seemed to calm down at these words and Petunia left the room to gather Harry’s belongings. Jack continued to speak as he lifted Harry into a chair, “Okay, we need you to write your name on these papers, just write Harry James Potter”. He showed Harry were to sign and helped him to spell his full name.

Ianto took the papers and looked over them, all they needed to do now was for Jack to sign them and Harry to sign them again if his name was changed as part of the adoption. Turning to Jack he spoke, “Are you changing his name?”

Jack looked at Harry, “Harry, your full name is Harry James Potter, we want to know if you want to keep James as your middle name or if you want a new one to go with your new last name.”

Harry seemed to consider this for a moment before nodding at Jack then pointing at Ianto as he spoke, “You pick” At this Ianto looked once again to Jack who nodded, “Something Welsh, Yan.”

Ianto thought for a couple of minutes, “Alright, how about Llewellyn?” he asked. Harry appeared to think it over before nodding his head enthusiastically. Jack nodded as well, “That sounds good, Harry Llewellyn Harkness-Jones.”

Ianto nodded and started to fill the information in on the adoption forms before stopping, “What?” he asked, looking to Jack in shock. Jack just smiled at him before replying, “We’re in this together, Yan. We’ll adopt him, not me, not you, us.”

Ianto smiled and finished filling in the forms signing them and giving them to Jack to do the same, then to Harry to sign them with his new name. Once done he magically sent copies to the muggle government, the ministry of magic and a copy to Gringotts to be kept by the goblins.

Petunia re-entered the kitchen carrying a holdall that she placed in front of Harry. “Is there anything that I’ve missed that you want to take, Harry.” she asked politely. Harry nodded as he got out of his seat, “I’ll get them Aunt Petunia, just a few drawings”, he spoke while walking out of the room.

Before anyone else could move the little boy was back in the room, putting his drawing into the bag. As they were about to exit the house, Harry having just thanked and said goodbye to his aunt, a man in black robes entered the kitchen through the back door. “I’m afraid that Potter won’t be going anywhere, he is to stay here with his family.”

Jack quickly spoke up, “Listen mate, you have no idea who you are talking to or talking about.”, before he could get any further he felt a hand on his shoulder, turning he saw Ianto shaking his head at him.

Ianto having recognized the man tried to defuse the situation quickly, “Mrs. Dursley, I thank you for your hospitality.” he spoke as they left the Dursley household. Once out of earshot of Petunia he spoke again, “Jack, take Harry to the car please, I’ll deal with this. Severus, follow me.”

“He’s coming home with me and Jack, Severus, and you can’t do anything about it. Why are you here anyway?”

Severus looked at him before replying, “I was in Dumbledore’s office when one of the alarms for this place was set off, the one that shows magic use. I recognized your magical signature erased the log of the entry and came to stop you doing whatever foolish stunt you were undertaking. You know he has to stay here because of the blood protection and Lillian’s sacrifice, why would you take him away from the protection that a blood relative provides for him.”

Ianto’s face turned from a look of horror at the thought Dumbledore knew, to relief that he didn’t, to incredulity at Severus’ assumption he was being foolish. “Severus, shut up. There is no protection for Harry in that house, the reason I’m here is that we found out he was being abused and it was being covered up by someone magical. As for the blood protection, it doesn’t exist, not here anyway, Lillian was adopted, she has no relation whatsoever to the Dursley family. He will be safer with me and Jack than here, he won’t be beaten for one and if anyone wants a family connection as a reason for him to be allowed to stay with us then fine, Jack’s his great-grandfather. Listen, we’ve got to get back to Cardiff, tell no-one about this and meet me tomorrow at the Silver Lily at about 7pm.”

Severus for once had no comeback so instead he just nodded to Ianto before walking into an alley to disapparate, still thinking on what he’d just been told. Ianto got into the front passenger seat of the car and closed the door before Jack started to drive away from Privet Drive then Jack spoke, “So, what’s happening?”

Ianto took a quick look into the back seat at Harry, “I’m meeting him tomorrow, I told him the basics and he’s going to keep quiet. I’m going to apparate home with Harry and his things, you drive back to the rental place with the car and I’ll come and pick you up.”

Jack nodded and pulled the car over so that Ianto could get out of the car and get Harry and his luggage. Ianto got Harry out of the car before grabbing his bag, holding on to Harry tightly he spoke, “We’re going to travel a bit differently okay Harry, I’m going to take you home then come back for Jack. You’ll wait with two of our friends; I’ll explain everything when Jack and I get home okay.”

Harry nodded before speaking quietly, “Okay, Papa Ianto.”

Ianto froze and looked at the little boy who seemed to go still at his lack of reaction, “What did you call me?” he asked quietly. Harry looked up at Ianto slowly, “Papa Ianto, I’m sorry, I won’t call you or papa Jack that again. Please don’t send me away.” he said as he started to cry.

Jack having realized something was wrong had gotten out of the car, heard what the little boy said before starting to cry and was about to step in, but Ianto was quicker. “Hey, hey, we’re not sending you away, it’s okay, it was just a shock. You can call me that if you want to; I was just a bit shocked okay. Come on, don’t cry.” he said as he pulled the shaking boy to him.

Jack came up behind Harry and wrapped him in a hug from behind, “You can call us both papa, okay. If that’s what you want, we are you’re guardians, but we’ll be your fathers or papas if that’s what you want okay, little one.”

Harry stopped crying and looked and them both before asking in a hopeful voice, “Really, you’ll be my dads.” Jack and Ianto both nodded before Jack gave him a quick kiss on the forehead, “Go with papa Ianto, yeah, and I’ll see you in a bit, okay, little one.”

Jack got back into the car and drove back to the rental place as Ianto apparated away with their son. The little boy was willing to accept them both as his fathers and Jack couldn’t have been any happier, well he could, but he was the happiest he’d been in a long time.

Apparating into his and Jack’s flat the sight that greeted Ianto was not what he had expected; Toshiko was stood in the centre of the living room in a pair of Jack’s boxers and one of his shirts. He raised an eyebrow, “Tosh, any reason why you’re wearing mine and Jack’s clothes.”

Tosh jumped, having had her back to Ianto and not having heard them come in, “Owen”, she stated simply as if that explained everything. “He spilled his coffee all over me, so my clothes are in your washing machine and he found some clothes for me in your room, I hope you don’t mind. It was either that or everyone getting an eyeful.” she said

Ianto nodded, “That’s fine Tosh. This is Harry, Harry this is Toshiko, one of our friends okay, can you stay here with her, whilst I go to talk to another one of our friends.” Harry nodded, “Where is Owen, Tosh?” Ianto asked.

“Kitchen”, she replied before getting lost in a conversation with the five year old leading him over to sit on the couch with her. Ianto walked into the kitchen to find Owen placing a dish in the oven, he looked around as Ianto entered, nodding to him.

“Everything go alright?” he asked, “We got everything done that Jack asked. Paperwork, tidied the hub and here, not that this place needed it, and sorted out the lads room. We even decided that we might as well make some dinner for the five of us.”

Ianto smiled, “Thanks Owen, it went fine in the house till we were leaving, but that was on the wizarding end. I’m meeting the guy tomorrow to let him know what’s going on, but he’s not going to squeal on us. Come on show me what you’ve done for his room.”

Upon entering the room Ianto was completely shocked, “This is great, Owen, you and Tosh have done a brilliant job, it means a lot. I’ve got to go pick up Jack can you start that medical check I know Jack asked about.”

Owen nodded and they walked back into the living room, “Harry”, Ianto said, “This is Owen, he’s a Doctor, he’s going to give you a quick look over while I go pick up papa Jack, okay. Be good.” He gave Harry a quick kiss on the forehead as he nodded, before apparating back to Surrey.

He met Jack outside the car hire office and they walked through the Surrey High Street to an alleyway in which they could apparate from. Before Ianto could take a hold of Jack to apparate them, Jack had pushed him up against a wall and began to kiss and suck his neck. “You know I love you, don’t you, Yan. I’d do anything for you, I love you so much, I don’t want to let you go, ever. Marry me, Yan.”

Ianto stood pressed against the wall unable to speak; he looked at Jack and saw the love for him in his eyes. “What brought this on, Jack? I mean you’ve never mentioned marriage or anything like it before, why now?”

Jack sighed, “I treated you like crap, Yan. All that time we were together I treated you badly, it wasn’t until I left I realized how much of a prick I’d been and how much I loved you. The thought that I’d never see you again was one of the few things that went through my head for that year, and when I got back I just wanted to be with you, Yan. I’ve been thinking about this for a while, but when Harry said he wanted us to be his fathers, it was the happiest I’d been in a long time as a result of someone other than you. I thought of how happy I was in that moment and how the only thing that could make me happier than him wanting to be our son is you being my husband.”

Ianto could see the sincerity in his eyes, “Yes”, he whispered as he pulled Jack down to kiss him, “Yes, I’ll marry you.” Jack pushed Ianto further into the wall as he plundered his mouth, “Love you, Yan, so much”, he said as he pulled away.

Ianto nodded, “Love you too, Jack. Come on we better get back, we can celebrate later. Can we keep this between us just now, Harry should be the first to know, but I want us to sit and explain everything to him first.” Jack agreed and Ianto pulled him flush against him and apparated back to their flat.


	3. Chapter 3

When they arrived in their living room it was to see Harry with a stethoscope in his ears listening to Tosh’s heartbeat as Owen used his distraction to carry out his tests. Jack smiled at the scene in front of him, looking at Ianto he saw the same expression mirrored on his face.

Owen finished with his regular medical checks before reaching into his bag and pulling out a medical scanner that they had found a few months before in the archives under miscellaneous that Jack had identified as a medical scanner from the 45th Century.

Using the scanner he rechecked the small child before Ianto pulled out his wand and ran a few different diagnostic spells over him. Once they were finished Ianto summoned his camera from where he had left it under the bed, why it was there would not be commented on, and started to take pictures of Harry and all the bruises he had.

As soon as they were finished Jack picked Harry up, sensing Owen and Ianto’s need to speak alone, motioned to Tosh to lead him to Harry’s room. Once they had left the room Owen turned to Ianto, “Mate, this is bad. All the different breaks in his bones, and he’s severely malnourished. Is there anything you can do for him because I as a Doctor can see nothing I can really do.”

Ianto nodded, “I thought you would say that. Yes, magic should be able to fix that, but first it will need to be documented.” He then walked over to the phone, picked it up and dialled a number. Before long someone at the other end picked up and a small voice spoke, “Hello, Bones residence”

“Suzy” Ianto said, “Can you get Aunty Amy for me, please? It’s Uncle Ianto.” A squeal could be heard down the line as the small girl called for aunt, “Aunt Amelia, Uncle Yan’s on the phone”

A few minutes later Ianto began to speak again, “Hi Amelia, its Ianto, listen I need a favour. Can you come over? Yes, bring Suzy, I haven’t seen her in a while anyway. Yes, I suppose it is, a sort of unofficial official type of business. Thanks Amy.”

Hanging up the phone Ianto made his way over to the couch were Owen had left his bag and the medical scanner, putting the scanner in the bag he then gave it to Owen. “I don’t think we should leave that out, Amelia would want to know everything about it.”

Before he could say anything else Amelia Bones apparated into the room with a young girl in her arms who immediately demanded to be put down and launched herself at Ianto, “Uncle Yan”

Catching her as she threw herself at him he swung her round and dumped her onto the couch. “Suzy, this is Owen, okay. Owen will you watch her just now, Suzy behave and watch cartoons okay sweetie.”

He motioned for Amelia to follow him and he made his way to Harry’s room, when they got there it was to see Jack sat on the beanbag a crying child in his lap. Ianto shot a questioning look to Tosh who was standing in the doorway.

“We brought him in and told him this was his room and he just broke down saying that he didn’t deserve it that he’s a bad boy and that he would sleep in a cupboard like he did at his aunts.” Tosh told Ianto before excusing herself going back to the living room.

Ianto sighed before walking over to his lover and the little boy who was essentially their child, dropping down to his knees in front of the child he spoke, “Harry love, you are not a bad boy, okay. You deserve this room and you will never sleep in a cupboard. You are our son and we love you, okay baby.”

Harry pulled away from Jack to look at Ianto before looking to Jack again as if thinking Jack would contradict what Ianto had said. It was then that Amelia got a good look at the child, realising who the small boy was she gasped, “Ianto, what’s happening, please tell me you did nothing illegal.”

Ianto smiled, “Of course not, Amy. Amy, this is my partner Jack Harkness, Jack this Amelia Bones, Head of the DMLE, a friend of mine from Hogwarts.” Ianto then quickly filled Amelia in on all the things they had found out that day. “So what we need you to do Amelia is to document and file all the information on his injuries before I heal him.”

Amelia nodded, “Of course, but first I want to know who did this to him. Albus said that he was in the best environment possible, that he was with a family who loved him under several protective wards.”

Ianto sighed, “Headmaster Dumbledore says a great many things Amy. He was with Lillian’s adoptive sister and her family, it was them that did this to him. As for the wards, I didn’t actually check them but we can easily go and have them documented ourselves, or send in a team of goblins. The abuse had been reported by a teacher at his school, but someone obliviated the authorities involved in the case. I got the information from a police officer that was missed in the rounds, I have all her notes on the case as well as her contact information. I also have Owen’s medical report, he’s a muggle doctor and the diagnostic parchment from my spells.”

Amelia agreed and asked for the documented evidence, Ianto gave her copies of both his and Owen’s medical reports and left her with Jack and Harry so she could talk to him about his treatment at his aunts, whilst he developed the photos having remembered what other photos were on the film. There was no way that he wanted Amelia or any of the others to see the pictures of him handcuffed naked to the bed, that Jack had insisted on taking.

Amelia’s conversation with Harry went rather well after Jack had convinced him that he wasn’t in any trouble and that he would never have to see his aunt or uncle again. Amelia had recorded the whole conversation with a dicta-quill and would make a copy of her memories to be placed in the file. She had a few thoughts of other evidence and memories that she would need to gather to make the case as watertight as possible, especially as the way it looked Dumbledore would be facing charges.

The small group of three made their way into the living room were Owen and Susan were debating who was the evil party in Tom and Jerry, while Tosh watched from the sidelines in bemusement. They had just introduced Harry and Susan to each other when Ianto came back into the room with a three different folders, one containing the newly developed photos of Harry, one that was a copy of the PC Davies’ file on Harry, both of which he gave to Amelia. The third folder he held in his hands as he sat down on the floor next to the children, looking through the folder full of letters until he came across the one he was looking for.

Dear Silv,  
How are you? I hope you are well my brother. Have you heard from Eb? He seems to be ignoring my letters, any idea as to why? I am as well as I can be with this war hanging over us, James and I have decided that we are going into hiding with Harry. Dumbledore says that is all that we can do now that Voldemort has made a target of us, all Dumbledore keeps saying is that because we defied him thrice, Harry is a target. I have to keep my baby safe, Ianto, he is my life. We are going into hiding under the fidelius charm, so I will be out of contact, I know you will stay safe my brother, you always manage to get out of things unscathed. 

I can’t quite believe everything that has happened recently, Silv. Such war and bloodshed it seems so depraved, all it does is rip families apart, on both sides of the war. I know of so many already that have left family behind, and James and I have prepared for every eventuality, it’s ridiculous I’m only twenty and I wrote my will the other day. I know however that it is necessary though, I have this feeling that James and I won’t survive this war, but I’m sure my son will, so everything needs to be put in place for him.

If James and I don’t live Harry is to go to Sirius or Alice, if neither are available he is to go to Remus or yourself, or as a last resort to my Ebony. He is a last resort for the same reason that Peter is not on this list, they are both rubbish with children, however Eb would make sure my baby is well loved and protected. Harry is under no circumstances to be left with Petunia (Evans) Dursley, you know how bad she is, and I have made sure that Harry will go to an orphanage rather than stepping foot in her house. Whoever takes guardianship of my child is to adopt them, and have control over his finances until he’s eleven at which stage they should be gradually handed over to him until he reaches majority when everything should be signed over. I am telling you this now because I know you will not be at my will reading brother, I know that you will not be able to attend, but you should know who is charged with the care of your nephew.

Carmine Serpent  
Lillian Potter

Ianto made a copy of the letter and gave it to Amelia as he spoke, “I know she made arrangements to make sure Harry never set foot in that house. She was right though, about me not making it to the will reading, I missed her funeral as well, I wasn’t back in the country. By the time I got back Sirius was in prison, Alice and Frank were in St. Mungos with little Neville being sent to his grandmother, and I thought that Harry was with Remus, I was going to wait until after Christmas this year to contact Remus to see Harry. Why wasn’t he given to Remus, it was in her will that he was never to go to the Petunia, how did Dumbledore get away with placing Harry with her, the goblins couldn’t have allowed it.”

Amelia looked pensive for a few moments before she answered, “I’m not completely sure how he got round the goblins, I’ll need to find out. But Remus wouldn’t have been allowed custody of Harry, the minister would never have allowed the child of light or whatever he’s being referred to as now to be raised by a werewolf.”

While they had been talking Tosh and Jack had slipped out to the kitchen and had begun to dish up dinner before calling the group through to the dining room, Amelia and Susan having been invited to stay, there was more than enough food as Tosh had intended for what was left to be frozen for the men later in the week. Once the meal was underway the conversation was kept to topics such as health of the family, how things had been in the wizarding or muggle worlds and general conversation. As the meal drew to a close jack asked something that he had been thinking about for a while, “Tosh, did you get in touch with Gwen?”

Tosh sighed, “Yes, Jack. She was being her usual self though, trying to take over, she wanted to cut her trip short with Rhys and come back straight away.” She stopped and waited until Owen after receiving the message from her had taken the children to Harry’s room, ostentatiously to play. “I can see you having problems with her wanting to look after Harry. It’s just a hunch I have but I can see her pulling the 'me and Rhys can provide him a stable home' card.”

Jack nodded, “I thought she might try something like that, trust me it won’t work. Ianto and I adopted him and we aren’t giving him to anyone else.”

Amelia looked up upon hearing the twist the conversation had taken and seeing the devious look on Ianto’s face, “Ianto, are you planning what I think you are planning?” He looked over at her with his patented ‘who me?’ look and in that moment she knew she was right, “You plan to do a blood adoption.”

Ianto just smirked at her, “Of course, Lillian told me that his guardian was to adopt him and I shall, whether Jack wants to do the adoption is up to him as Harry already carries his blood, but with mine running through his veins no-one else would be able to try and gain custody of him.”

Amelia nodded her head in acceptance of his reasons and explained to Jack and Tosh how a blood adoption worked upon seeing their confused states. Upon hearing what the adoption entailed and how each parent had to pick to godparents each for the child, Jack stood and asked Ianto to accompany him into the other room, leaving the two women to their own devices.

Once in the privacy of their bedroom Jack spoke, “I want to do this, I may already be related to him by blood but this will make me one of his parents, which may ease some of his doubts. I do want to discuss his godparents though, I know you will pick two magical people as they will help him the most when he goes into the wizarding world, I just want to make sure your okay with my choices, Martha for godmother and the Doctor as his godfather.”

Ianto smiled, “I knew you would pick them, I have no problem with that at all. The only problem I see is that he will have all of Torchwood, someone in UNIT, a Time Lord, the Head of Magical Law Enforcement and his future Head of House, as he will definitely go into Slytherin, all wrapped around his little finger.”

Jack laughed, imagining the picture that Ianto painted, it was something that he could see happening very easily. They spoke for a few more minutes before returning to the living room where Amelia and Tosh were planning.


	4. Chapter 4

As soon as Jack and Ianto had made their way out of the dining room, Amelia and Tosh had made their way to the living room and were currently going over all the things that Amelia would need as evidence to the abuse. She knew she would have to get a copy of both of Jack and Ianto’s memories, as well as Owen’s memory of his medical examination, but it would be helpful to get a copy of the young police officer memory and check the authorities involved and the teacher’s minds for signs of tampering. When she mentioned this to Tosh, but also the need for secrecy due to the Statute of Secrecy, the Japanese woman suddenly squealed before making her way over to a laptop on a table in the corner of the room.

It was then that Jack and Ianto came back into the room, Tosh speaking up before anyone else could say anything, “Jack, Ianto, you need to give Amelia a copy of your memories of what happened with Harry. Ianto, I need to know if you told the PC who you worked for.”

They both moved to do as directed, both scared of Tosh when she’s in one of her powered up efficient moods, the no nonsense Toshiko, and Ianto nodded to her in answer. Both were wondering what she was up to, but they were both too afraid of her to ask, after all if they upset her she’d disable all their technology or re-route the CCTV of them in the gun range onto BBC News or something equally horrific.

About ten minutes later she let out a small noise of triumph, “Right that is everything set up. Ianto, PC Davies should be waiting for you in about half an hour outside the police station, if you apparate then take the SUV, if you then bring her here or take her to the house we have to work out of if necessary. Amelia can then get her memories of the investigation, then if you give her a dose of level 1 B67.”

Ianto nodded and then disappeared with a sharp crack. Jack looked over to Tosh eyebrow raised in question at his tech guru. She just smiled at him, “Amelia, needs the PC’s memory of the investigation and she needs to check the others for mental tampering, but needs to be careful due to the secrecy required. Ianto will get PC Davies memory and tomorrow Ianto will go to Surrey with the back up SUV and meet Amelia then they can check the others who were involved in the investigation for signs of mental tampering. I have set meetings up with each of those involved, they believe that they will be involved in random checks that we are insisting on every now and then.”

Jack’s smile was a mile wide, grinning at her like a proud parent he spoke, “Toshiko, my evil genius, I knew you were good. What I want to know though is how you managed to do that from here, unless, Tosh have you wired your laptop into the main systems so that you can interface with the central system from anywhere?”

Tosh looked at him bashfully, “Um, maybe, listen Jack. Don’t be mad, I'm the only one who can access the laptop, it’s so protected that it would be impossible to break into the mainframe from. I mean, the laptop has both eye and voice recognition that has to be bypassed before you get to three different password zones, each different, and each changed daily. Then to get into the mainframe you have to go through the whole log in and security process you have to go through at work to access anything.”

“Alright”, Jack acquiesced, “But you have to set one up for both Ianto and I, so that we can take it in turns to work from home when the kidlit is not at school.”

Tosh nodded and was about to explain how she had done it when Amelia spoke, “I may not be an expert on muggles and their technology, but what you were just suggesting isn’t possible is it. And how did you manage to just set up meetings with members of the police as easily as you did?”

Tosh didn’t know how to respond and looked towards Jack to find out what she should do, instead of her doing anything Jack answered in her stead, “Your right, the technology that Tosh has used isn’t anything that the regular public have. Before I can explain how she set up the meetings with the police, I need to know what level of security clearance you have.”

Amelia looked surprised at this request but answered anyway, “Level 2”

At that Jack smiled, “Okay, the reason for how Tosh set the meetings up so quickly is because no-one really wants to piss off Torchwood.”

“Torchwood”, Amelia gasped, “You both work for Torchwood?”

“Captain Jack Harkness, Head of the Torchwood Institute, it’s a pleasure to meet you.” Jack said with a grin, “Toshiko Sato, our technological expert. Owen is our Doctor, Ianto is technically second in command or Assistant Director, as well our archivist and well a lot of other stuff. The last member of our team Gwen is away with her fiancé at the moment, she is our, erm, police liaison, I think.”

Amelia just sat where she was looking stunned, “Ianto is Torchwood. I can’t believe it. I mean why get me involved with all this if you’re Torchwood, you can go directly above our government, you are above our government.”

Jack sighed, “We try as much as possible to keep a low profile in the magical world, everything that goes through to your world has no names on it. When Ianto or I send things to Minister Fudge we always sign as either The Director or The Administrator. Fudge doesn’t like the fact that while we are just a group of what he believes is all muggles that we have more power than he has, so we like to make sure that nothing that he gets access to has the name of anyone who works for us on it, as I quite like the idea of my staff being alive. If we were to control Harry’s case and handle it as a Torchwood matter, that would put both Harry and my team in danger, Fudge would know that Harry was important to us and would use him to gain control over us.”

Amelia looked horrified at the idea of what her boss would do to control these people, “I think I see were you are coming from with this, I’ve only heard the Minister talk about Torchwood a few times, but it has never been in a favourable light. So you don’t want anyone to know the Torchwood connection to Harry, in his case he has just been adopted by his mother’s friend and his partner?”

“Yes”, Jack answered, “If we have to we will pull the Torchwood card, however by getting you involved we are doing things in a proper way, getting everything recorded and documented by you, I know that we will be keeping copies of all the evidence as well. I also had an idea about how to hide the information you gather until we are ready or have all the information to do anything about it, in a few days, perhaps tomorrow Dumbledore is going to realise that Harry Potter is missing and will start looking for him, any file that has anything regarding Harry Potter in it will be looked through if I know his type. If you start a new file however under the name Harry Llewellyn Harkness-Jones, he will overlook it completely.”

Before anyone could speak Owen re-entered the room, sinking into the nearest chair he spoke, “They’re both asleep, what have I missed?”

Toshiko quickly filled him in on the plans that had been made so far and what Ianto was doing at the moment. Once she had finished Owen seemed to think for a moment before talking, “So Ianto’s out tomorrow, and Jack’s kid sitting. Just the two of us then, until Gwen gets back.”

Tosh nodded, but jack shook his head, “Ianto is away tomorrow morning and evening, the meetings that Tosh has set up should be finished by lunchtime, so I will come in then with your lunch and stay until about dinnertime. Ianto needs to meet that Severus at six I think, but we won’t be completely short-staffed I’m going to call in a few favours with UNIT and commandeer a few people from their ranks. I know we shouldn’t be of the scale Torchwood London was, but I think that we are running ourselves a bit thin at the moment, I’ll get Martha to recommend some people and bring them down sometime this week, she’ll need to be here anyway.”

Tosh and Owen just shared a look over Jack’s head, Amelia now ignoring the conversation as she read through the police officers notes on Harry’s case, trying to get a feel of the others who had worked on the case in preparation for the next day. “So, how many people are we looking for and what areas?” Owen asked.

Jack looked pensive for a moment before answering, “Well, there’s the five of us, so I was thinking maybe another ten people, take us up to about fifteen. I definitely want another couple of Doctors, a new weapons expert since we haven’t had anyone in that post since Suzie, someone to man our cover entrance and someone to deal with some of the day to day inertia to free Ianto up a bit, and some more field agents.”

Owen nodded, seeing the wisdom of the idea now that Jack and Ianto had a child and Gwen was getting married, but needed to make a few things clear. “I’m still the head medic”, he asked, continuing after Jack nodded, “And none of the newbies get to touch my weevil research.”

They spent the next while going over what sort of thing they would go for in the new staff, and Tosh began to look through UNIT’s personnel files to find the type of people the would look into commandeering from UNIT. Amelia was quietly going through all the files she had been given and didn’t speak until Ianto arrived back with the police officer’s memories.

“I’ve been thinking. All these reports are all well and good, but I really need to get a copy of Harry’s memories. I think its best to get them now while he’s asleep so that he doesn’t have to see all the memories again.” Amelia told them.

Once she was given the go ahead the group as a whole made their way to Harry’s bedroom, Jack and Ianto as his guardians were required to be there, Amelia to extract the memories, and Tosh and Owen wanted to watch the process to see how it happens. When they entered the room it was to see the two five year olds curled up around each other on the bed fast asleep.

Jack turned to Owen, “I meant to ask, how did you get them to go to sleep?” he queried.

“Erm, well I readtothemandtheyfellasleep.” Owen muttered in response.

“Sorry, I couldn’t hear that, Owen. What did you do?” Jack asked again.

“I read to them alright, I read to them and they fell asleep.” Owen answered, trying to look annoyed, but couldn’t help but smile when Susan shifted in her sleep and Harry moved with her so as not to lose the contact he had with her.

Amelia extracted copies of the memories she needed as quickly as she could so as to make the experience as emotionally painless as possible, making a copy for Ianto she then put her copies with the other evidence she had been given that evening. Thinking of the last piece of evidence she needed to gather she turned to Ianto, “Is it alright if I leave Susan here while I go to speak to the goblins?”

The answer she got surprised her, “There is no need. I’ll contact the goblins, just give me a minute.” At that Ianto pulled out his mobile phone, she knew what it was she did know about the muggle world a little bit, and dialled a number, it was a few moments before he spoke, but when he did who he was speaking to shocked her.

“Director Ragnok, yes it’s nice to speak to you again, how is the family? Good, good. I need a favour, yes well unofficially officially. I need a ward analysis of the property Number 4 Privet Drive, Little Whinging, Surrey. Yes, if you send a copy to Madam Bones, myself and put a copy in our vault. I’d also like for you to look into the Potter’s wills and the execution of them, do the same with the findings. Yes, I look forward to seeing you again, the same to you and your clan, may your gold always grow.”

After explaining to her that Torchwood had a rather good relationship with the goblins and how the information she needed about the wards and the wills should be on her desk by the next morning, Ianto had invited Amelia to stay the night. She declined the offer and gathering up her evidence and Susan, she apparated away. Tosh and Owen didn’t stay long after that, both having to be up early the next morning. After the others had gone Jack and Ianto checked on Harry once more before making their way to bed. It wasn’t long before the events of the day caught up with them and they both fell asleep.


	5. Chapter 5

Waking up, Harry was confused, where was he, this wasn’t his cupboard, he looked around the room, realising at once that it hadn’t been a dream and that he really had been taken away from his aunts house. Climbing cautiously out of bed he made his way to the door, opening it slightly and peering curiously through the gap, watching as papa Jack made his way towards his door. Quickly he closed the door and made his way back to the bed, not sure whether or not he was allowed to leave the bed.

The door opened slowly and Jack looked into the room, then he spoke, “Hey kidlit, are you awake?” He waited for Harry to answer him before speaking again, “Do you want to come and get breakfast?” he asked when Harry had nodded.

Harry followed Jack through to the kitchen where Ianto was putting some toast and cereal out on the breakfast bar. Jack picked Harry up and sat him on a stool before taking a seat next to Ianto, opposite Harry and let Ianto handle breakfast. “Morning Harry, what do you want for breakfast, there is cereal or toast, or you can have both, but we need to go over at some point what you like to eat, I think there may be some fruit in the fridge as well.”

“Morning”, Harry replied, “Can I have some cereal, please?”

“Of course you can”, Ianto answered as he prepared Harry’s breakfast, then sat back down next to Jack to eat his own toast as he watched Harry eat his breakfast slowly with a look of nervousness about him.

It was still early and Ianto had two hours before he had to meet Amelia, so they had decided to talk to and explain everything to Harry after he had eaten. Once Harry had finished his breakfast, Ianto put the dishes into the dishwater as Jack picked Harry up and swung him onto his back carrying him through to the living room.

Jack gently lowered Harry onto the couch then sat next to him, “Okay kidlit, we need to talk to you okay. We’ll explain what’s going to happen now, so that you can make some choices, do you understand?”

Harry gave a small nod, not completely sure why he would have to choose anything, but not wanting to be a nuisance to the two men who had saved him from the Dursleys. By this point Ianto had entered the room and had sat down on Harry’s other side.

It was Ianto who began the conversation, starting with the basics, “Harry, we want to talk about what is going to happen now, okay. We have adopted you legally, so you are our son, and you can call us whatever you like, papa, tad, dad, daddy and you don’t need to add Jack or Ianto to it either.”

Jack then carried on from where Ianto had left off, “In the next couple of days we will be adopting you in a different way, this will make you look like us both. Are you okay with that?”

Harry looked at them a little unsure of what they meant, “I’ll look like you both? How?”

Ianto took over the explanation trying to approach the topic sensitively, “Have you ever done anything that you couldn’t explain?”

Upon hearing Ianto’s words Harry began to shake, they had to ask, now they’d know that he was a freak, and they’d get rid of him.

When he felt Harry shaking next to him Jack pulled Harry onto his lap trying to soothe him. “Hey, hey kidlit. Its okay, you’re not in trouble, we just wanted to know. It won’t change anything.” Harry just started to shake harder, but nodded his head to indicate that yes he had done unexplainable things before.

“There’s nothing wrong with what you’ve done, Harry, its normal, love. It is known as accidental magic, it is very common in children who aren’t trained to use their magic.” Ianto explained.

At this Harry raised his head from where he was resting it against Jack’s chest to speak, “Magic isn’t real.” Harry said, before trying to bury himself into Jack.

Knowing that the only way to get him to believe him would be to show Ianto moved closer, “Harry love, magic is real sweetie. You have magic, I have magic, your parents had magic, and Susan and Amelia who were here yesterday both have magic. I can show you if you want.”

Ianto then unsheathed his wand from his wand holster attached to his arm and cast the first spell that came to mind, “wingardium leviosa” he intoned as the small coffee table lifted into the air, its movements controlled by Ianto’s wand. Harry looked at the table in shock, then his eyes flitted to the wand in Ianto’s hand then to Jack.

“We have magic?” Harry asked, continuing at Ianto’s nod, “What about daddy, does he have magic too?”, he asked, while looking up at Jack who had been promptly named daddy in Harry’s young mind.

“No kidlit, I don’t have magic. Magic is a special gift only given to some people, like you and your Tad.”, Jack answered, supplying the honorific title that he knew that Ianto would want to be called, but would never ask to be called.

Harry seemed to think over what he had been told so far, he turned once again to Ianto and having understood the prompt from Jack spoke, “Tad, if magic is a gift, can I give magic to daddy, so he isn’t left out.”

Jack chuckled as Ianto tried to come up with an answer, “Magic can’t be given like a present Harry love, it’s a gift we get before we are born, daddy has his own gifts okay.”

When Harry nodded, Jack decided he better steer the conversation back in the direction it was meant to be taking, “So that’s how we are going to adopt you okay kidlit, we’re going to adopt you using magic to make you look like us. If you want us to, that is.”

Harry nodded, “Please, I’ll be good.”

“We know you’ll be good, Harry. Now I need to talk to you about your mum and dad, they were also a witch and wizard. Do you know anything about them, Harry?” Ianto asked, needing to know what Harry had been told about Lily and James.

“They were drunks who died in a car crash.”, Harry answered in a tone much too old or devoid of any emotion than should be for a five year old.

Ianto swore softly under his breath and Jack started to explain what he knew of Harry’s parents in a way that wouldn’t mentally scar the child while Ianto tried to calm himself down. “Your mum and dad didn’t die in a car crash, kidlit. They were a witch and wizard, they were very brave and they loved you very much. Before you were born and when you were a baby, there was a war or a big fight in the wizarding world.”

Having calmed down a bit Ianto took over the explanation, “The fight had been going on for many years, and when they left school your parents decided they would fight. Your dad went to work as an Auror, which is like a police officer, and your mum went to work in research after working to gain her Charms Mastery. Because they were fighting they were big targets, and the leaders of one side decided to make sure that they were not a problem to him again. He came to your house and killed your parents, not much is known about that night and I’m not completely sure what happened, but he apparently tried to hurt you as well, and he couldn’t and he disappeared.”

Harry sat for a moment trying to take it all in, “They didn’t die in a car crash then?” he asked with tears in his eyes, “They didn’t just dump me with Aunt Petunia?”

“No, baby.” Ianto consoled, “They died fighting for their beliefs and for you and they didn’t dump you with the Dursleys. That night you became famous in the wizarding world, you are known as the Boy-Who-Lived, the leader of the other side of the fight placed you with Petunia, so you weren’t brought up with your fame, I think.”

Ianto then explained that he would be going away for a bit and he would stay with Jack, then they’d swap and then swap again today and they’d sort a more regular routine later in the week. He also explained that they would be doing the adoption on Sunday, once he had got the necessary potion. He then began to heal as much of the damage done to Harry as was possible without the use of potions.

Once Ianto had left to meet Amelia Jack decided upon looking around the living room that it had to be decorated, you couldn’t have Christmas without a tree when there is a child in the house it just wasn’t fair. Knowing of a few things he had to do while he had the morning free from Torchwood, he sent Harry to get dressed while he made a phone call.

The phone was answered almost straight away and Jack spoke before the other person had the chance, “Martha Jones, the voice of a nightingale. How are you and Tom?”

They exchanged pleasantries before Jack once again took control of the conversation, “Martha, I need you to come to Cardiff, there’s a ceremony that I want you to attend. Ianto and I want you to be one of our sons godmothers, can you get in touch with the Doctor, I want him here to. Yes, I’ll explain everything when you get here.”

Martha spent the next few minutes asking many questions she would have to wait to have answered before Jack interrupted her, “Listen Martha, I’m also in need of a couple of Doctors for Torchwood, are you interested?”

That was not what Martha was expecting and she quickly asked, “Why, what happened to Owen?” She liked Owen, she’d met him when she’d come to visit Jack, he was a good man if not a bit of a prat.

Jack laughed, “Nothing, he’s fine. But we are looking to expand the team, now that Ianto and I have Harry and Gwen is getting married. So I’m putting a request or I suppose order would be more precise through to UNIT commandeering ten of their staff and I want to know if you want to be on the list.”

“Yes, I suppose, but you get to explain to mum why I’m moving to Cardiff. Although, Jack, what about Tom, I mean I can’t just leave him, he’s done some work with UNIT before and knows about the visitors we get here on Earth.” Martha replied.

Jack stopped to think before replying, “Could you work with him? He’s a paediatrician isn’t he?”

“Yes and yes”, Martha answered.

“Well if he wants the job, he can have it. I know both you and Owen are good Doctors but I’d rather have a child’s Doctor around as well. I know that Tosh and Owen will most likely be going through the UNIT personnel files at the moment to find the most suitable for the other posts, so I’ll email your boss later today, you won’t have to give notice as your being taken to Torchwood. I’ll see you on Sunday, but I’ll probably speak to you again tomorrow.” Jack replied.

As Jack finished his phone call Harry wandered back into the living room and sat on the couch, waiting patiently for Jack to hang up before speaking, “Can you tie my laces please, daddy?”

Jack tied his laces before looking in the hall cupboard for the coat Owen was bound to have bought for Harry, you couldn’t live in Cardiff without one, when he found it he had to hold back a laugh, Owen had bought a miniature version of the coat Ianto always wore. He picked up Harry’s coat and one of his own non-dashing heroic coats, he didn’t want to draw attention to himself whilst out with Harry, although he was still carrying his gun. He also picked up the only scarf there, Ianto’s Slytherin one, knowing that if he didn’t make sure Harry was as warm as possible he’d get in trouble.

Once he had bundled Harry up in his coat and the scarf, so as to protect him from the elements they left the flat, locking up behind them and before long they were in Ianto’s car on the way to the nearest Tesco. Before they got out of the car Jack made sure that Harry understood that he was not to wander away and that he had to behave, not things Jack thought would be a problem, but needing to make sure.

Grabbing a trolley on the way into the store Jack pushed it with one hand whilst holding onto Harry with the other, they made their way around the store picking up some things that Harry liked too eat. When they reached the isle with all the Christmas decorations Jack picked up a 5ft tree, then asked Harry what decorations he wanted. 

The idea that he got to pick anything was a new one for Harry, so worried about getting things wrong decided to pick colours that his new parents liked. The scarf that he was wearing smelt like his Tad, so he must like the colours Harry’s young mind supplied, so he pointed out both green and silver decorations.

They finished the shopping rather quickly and after driving home, Jack carried the shopping up to the flat, Harry leading the way so that Jack was able to keep him in sight at all times. After putting all the food away, Jack unpacked the tree and set it up, however he wouldn’t allow Harry to decorate it, telling him that they would wait and decorate it later with Ianto there as well.


	6. Chapter 6

Realising the time, Jack quickly gathered everything he needed and made his way back out of the flat Harry in tow, they made their way to the Hub, stopping to get lunch from a small Japanese place that Toshiko was fond of. They entered the Hub using the invisible lift, Jack not wanting to have to take the long way down. Harry was mesmerised by the lift as it descended, looking around and trying to take everything in that he saw, a look of stunned awe spread across his face as Myfanwy circled above them.

Noticing how empty the main floor was Jack taking a hold of Harry’s hand made his way to the boardroom, opening the boardroom door he saw Tosh and Owen sat at the table with a couple of different piles of paper spread across the table. Entering the room making as much noise as possible, he then put the bags of food down then sat at the table pulling Harry onto his lap. “Lunch is here, how have things been here?” Jack asked.

“Dead boring” Owen replied, “No rift activity at all. So we’ve been going through UNIT’s personnel files to find people who’d fit in with both us and our requirements.”

Jack laughed as he opened a carton of noodles for Harry, “I thought you would have. You don’t need to bother about Doctors though, I know who I want.”

At that Owen raised an eyebrow, “It’s me who will have to work with them, don’t I get a say? Who are you hiring?”

“Nope, my decision is final. As for who I’m hiring, Martha Jones and Tom Milligan.” Jack answered.

“Martha, I suppose, I’ll be able to work with her without to many problems. Who is this Tom Milligan, he wasn’t in the UNIT files.” Owen asked.

“No, he wouldn’t be. He only does some part-time work for UNIT, he’s a paediatrician, but he’s done some work with the doctors without borders. He’s Martha’s boyfriend, partner, whatever they are calling themselves.” Jack answered.

“Oh Jack” Tosh sighed, “Did you have to? Gwen is going to be bad enough that we have done all this without her getting a say, but bringing a couple into Torchwood. She’s going to be unbearable, all we’ll hear is...” She paused before mimicking Gwen, “‘Jack and Ianto can talk to each other, so can Martha and Tom, but I can’t talk to Rhys.’”

“Tough”, Jack spoke, “Rhys is a civilian, none of the new recruits are, even Tom has experience in some of these matters and he’ll be useful to have around.” He looked pointedly down at Harry as he spoke, before continuing, “If Gwen has any problems with it she can just deal with it. Now let me see who you have decided on between you.”

“Well, we started to look for someone to fill Suzie’s post first as that was the position that had a more specific skill set than others.” Tosh started, “We narrowed it down to one guy, who luckily for us wants out of London, he’s been trying to transfer to the UNIT base at Port Talbot as his wife is now working with the Cardiff police. His name is James Parker, he’s been with UNIT for six years now, immaculate record, met his wife Kateryn at a UNIT function. Kateryn worked with UNIT for two years before transferring to the London Police then she was transferred here to Cardiff. We think if we hire James, and maybe hire Kateryn as our eyes and ears within the Cardiff police, they are beginning to try and withhold information again and sending Gwen to talk to them is pissing them off.”

Jack looked through the file that Tosh handed him then nodded, “He seems like a safe bet, and he’ll be grateful to be in Cardiff rather than out at Port Talbot, if UNIT ever got his transfer sorted. Who’s next?”

It was Owen that spoke next, “Ianto’s aide or whatever we’re calling it, there’s a young woman, Amanda Jenkins, she’s been with UNIT for three years and isn’t advancing, she’s stuck being the coffee girl. I mean the job she has is worse than some of the stuff Ianto does here, she’s basically a slave to those above her, she can’t leave because they have her in an airtight contract. We think she’ll be great at liaising with the public, from what I remember of her anyway, but she’ll be glad to get out of UNIT, even if she is doing a similar job in a way.”

“You know her?” Jack questioned.

“Yes, Amanda Jenkins, remember. She came across us when we were dealing with that Hoix that had torn apart her elder brother. She was retcon resistant so we sent her to a UNIT psychologist, and then found her a job in UNIT. They obviously decided that because we got her the job she’d be the in-house Torchwood scapegoat.” Owen replied.

All Jack was able to do was nod before Tosh started in on her next candidate, “Talking of psychologists, I think we need one on the team, Tara Bartlett freelances for UNIT every now and again. I say we employ her, but allow her to still work with UNIT when they need her, meaning they’d owe us a favour. I’ve spoken to her before, all lifelong hide them away type prisoners had to talk to a psychologist first, she was good at her job.”

Owen then continued, “We then started looking into field agents there are three out at Port Talbot that we liked the look of, they work mostly as a team and balance each other well but are all all-rounders in what they do. Lysander Malfoy, Derek Brown and Aiden Millar, they’ve been with UNIT three, four and four years respectively. The last person is currently suspended pending an investigation, one Jodi Scott, she’s 32 and has been with UNIT for ten years, working her way up the ranks. Very impressive record, it was clean until she was suspended last month, she was suspended for ‘reading restricted files’, meaning that she found out something she wasn’t supposed to and now UNIT are making her out to be in the wrong so they can get permission to wipe her memory.”

Jack just nodded, before lifting Harry as he stood and placed him back in the chair, speaking directly to the child, “I want you to stay here with Uncle Owen and Auntie Tosh while daddy goes and deals with the boring and stuffy UNIT officials. Make sure Uncle Owen behaves himself, okay kidlit.”

Opening up his email account Jack quickly checked for any important messages before composing an email to send to UNIT.

Colonel Mace,  
This is Captain Jack Harkness of the Torchwood Institute, this email is to inform you that I am requisitioning seven members of your staff and two part-time members of your staff. The members of staff are as follows:

Derek Brown  
Amanda Jenkins  
Martha Jones  
Lysander Malfoy  
Aiden Millar  
James Parker  
Jodi Scott

Tara Bartlett  
Tom Milligan

I expect them to be notified off this today and arrangements to be made for them to arrive in Cardiff at 0900 hours on Monday. Martha Jones and Tom Milligan, as Doctors should arrive by 0900 hours on Sunday.

This is non-negotiable, and we expect UNIT’s co-operation with this matter.

Cpt. Jack Harkness  
Director of the Torchwood Institute

Ianto Jones apparated to the Torchwood underground garage, under the Millennium Centre where both SUVs were parked. He quickly shrunk the back-up SUV and placed it in his pocket, not having to worry about the spillage of fuel or water as both SUVs run on magic, Ianto having converted them not long after he started work at Torchwood 3.

Apparating to a CCTV blank spot he then un-shrunk the SUV and got in it whilst waiting for Amelia to apparate to the co-ordinates he had supplied her with. Once she had arrived Ianto pulled out of the alleyway, driving to the Surrey Police Station. He parked the SUV as close as he possibly could to the front of the station, then after locking it both he and Amelia entered the station, going straight to the front desk, Ianto demanding they be taken to a conference room or whatever this police department had as the equivalent.

They spent the next few hours talking to each of the people who had been involved with the investigation into Harry’s home life individually. They had all been briefed that they were not allowed to talk about what happened in their meeting to anyone, and that they would face dismissal from the forces if they did. Ianto had grilled each and every one of them on security and evacuation protocols, while Amelia acting like a secretary unobtrusively searched each of their minds for signs of tampering taking notes on her findings. The probing of their minds had not been noticed by any of them, so there was no need for them to use the retcon that Ianto had brought with him.

After finishing the necessary meetings at the police station they once again found themselves in the alleyway after a short drive. “They all had signs of mental tampering, all bearing Albus’ magical signature, however that could easily be explained in that they had responded to a crime of a magical nature and Dumbledore had obliviated them as required by the Statute of Secrecy.” Amelia told Ianto. “On the other hand the Potter’s wills, Gringotts sent me what they had found. A will for the Potter’s was submitted before they went into hiding by the Potter Solicitors, when opened it contained exactly what Lily stated in the letter, as well as bequeaths for a number of different people. This will had been sealed with the Wizengamot seal on the 31st of October. Another will was submitted on the 31st of October, the day of their death by a junior clerk from the Potter Solicitors, this was the will that was read by the goblins on the 1st of November. This will stated that Harry was to live with Lily’s sister Petunia, with Albus being named his magical guardian and the regent to the Potter Estate.”

Ianto swore softly, “As soon as we do the blood adoption, Dumbledore will know as I will automatically be named regent through the vow to take care of Harry’s interests, if he doesn’t know that Harry is already gone. We are doing the blood adoption on Sunday, I would like you to serve as one of Harry’s godmothers.”

Amelia nodded, “Yes, unfortunately we can’t stop him from finding out until we are ready. And of course I will serve as one of his godmothers.”

They talked for a few moments, talking about the plans for Sunday, before Ianto shrunk the SUV placing it in his pocket then apparating back to the Torchwood garage to un-shrink the vehicle. Entering the Hub through the door from the garage, he made his way straight to the boardroom, knowing that Jack was bringing lunch for the others so they would most likely be there eating.

When he entered the room he had a few moments to brace himself before his legs were being hugged, “Tad, you’re back.” Ianto looked down at Harry before picking him up, “Hey kiddo, where’s your daddy?”

“He’s dealing with the”, Harry paused an intense look of concentration crossing his face, “the boring and stuffy UNIT officials.” He finished a look of happiness filling his face at the idea of remembering what his dad had said.

Ianto looked to Tosh for a better explanation. “He’s sending of his list to Colonel Mace of who he wants here by Monday morning.” Tosh answered.

Ianto nodded, Jack had mentioned hiring some new staff from UNIT’s ranks, he just wondered who his partner would have chosen. Looking back at the child in his arms he spoke, “Say goodbye to Tosh and Owen, it’s time we went home.”

Harry quickly said his goodbyes as Ianto carried him away to his dad’s office where he was placed in the chair in front of the desk. Ianto then made his way around the desk reading the email Jack had just finished typing over his shoulder, looking down the list of candidates he smiled and nodded before speaking, “I thought you said you wanted a staff of fifteen?”

Jack looked up, “I do. But the last person I want doesn’t work for UNIT anymore, she’s a member of the Cardiff PD, she used to work for UNIT and knows about Torchwood. Kateryn Parker, her husband James is one of those I’m commandeering from UNIT, I want her as an in-house police liaison.”

“Okay”, Ianto replied, “I’m going to take Harry home. What have you been up to this morning, apart from making staffing decisions?”

“Well, I called Martha, she’ll be here on Sunday and she’s going to contact the Doctor for us. We also went food shopping, and we bought the Christmas tree and decorations, the tree is up, but we’ll decorate it as a family when I get home.” Jack replied, handing Ianto his car keys as he rounded the desk. He picked Harry up and kissed his forehead, “I’ll see you when I get home, kidlit.”

Jack then passed him to Ianto and kissed him as well, before he walked out of the office, Harry’s small voice floating back towards him, “Bye, daddy.”


	7. Chapter 7

Jack watched on the CCTV as Ianto buckled Harry into his car, then got into the driver’s seat and drove away. Waiting until he was out of the immediate vicinity, he made his way back to the boardroom where Owen and Tosh were talking over their leisurely lunch. “Tosh, rift activity predictions?” Jack asked.

Toshiko looked up from her lunch, pressing a few keys on her laptop before replying, “No rift activity according to this for at least the rest of the day.”

Jack smiled, “Okay, well I sent our list off to Mace, but I left Kateryn off of it as he’s not under his jurisdiction. I’m going to speak to her now, do you both mind staying here and starting to get this place in shape. I know we’ll need new computers and the like, Tosh can you deal with that, just charge the order to the Torchwood card get them to deliver them to the house as soon as possible.”

When they both nodded he left the room, heading straight for the door to the garage, taking the back-up SUV and driving into the centre of Cardiff. Parking the SUV he made his way into a small jewellers he had seen once when he was weevil hunting. The shop was small, and in some ways reminded him of Billis Manger’s clock shop, the displays all looked lovingly taken care of and there were an assortment of different pieces on display. Jack walked around the shop looking fleetingly at all the displays until he came across the male jewellery in particular rings. He looked at each ring in the display case, some being dismissed immediately while others were studied longer, however none of the rings were what he was looking for.

Jack was about to give up and try somewhere else when he heard a voice behind him, “Can I help you, Sir?” The elderly man spoke.

Jack looked back at the collection of rings on show before speaking, “I’m looking for something special, I’ll know when I see it, but I’ll need two of them. Do you have any other male rings for sale?”

“Of course, sir.” The man replied, “I have a few out the back or you could design a ring and have them specially made.”

After perusing the other rings that the jeweller had to offer Jack still couldn’t find the perfect ring, it had to be a mix of both him and Ianto, his over the top personality and Ianto’s more reserved outlook. In the end he decided to have the rings custom made, that way at least if he got the ring wrong, Ianto would still appreciate the sentiment. Asking the jeweller how he would go about designing the rings, he was told that as long as he knew how he wanted the rings to look and the materials he wanted used, he could take the order and have the rings made for him.

The jeweller handed him a form that had all the things that he would need to decide about the rings, the first being the width and depth, deciding that the rings shouldn’t be to big he wrote down 7mm wide, 2.25mm depth. The next thing he had to choose was the metal, he personally would choose gold, but he knew that Ianto would prefer something less flashy looking like silver. He settled therefore on white gold, he’d get the metal and Ianto the look he wanted. Jack was unwilling to compromise on the stones however, not that Ianto really had an option, but Jack wanted diamonds. Envisioning the ring he wrote down a description the ring having five bands, the middle one being plain but having eight round diamonds evenly spaced around it, the bands on either side of the middle band should be coiled or twisted, and the outer two bands should be plain. He then wrote down both his and Ianto’s ring sizes, the wonders of his vortex manipulator, never before had he thought he would need to get any measurement from someone without their knowledge.

After taking note of when the rings would be ready he paid the jeweller by card, the money coming out of his savings account, and after over one hundred years on Earth he had saved quite a bit. He then left the jewellers and drove the remaining distance to the police station.

Entering the police station, he walked purposefully up to the front desk, he looked the desk sergeant up and down trying to unnerve him before speaking, “I’d like to speak with PC Parker, please.”

Jack was directed over to some seats and told that PC Parker would be with him in a few moments, as he waited he looked around the reception of the police office at how shiny it was thinking that maybe Torchwood should go for something similar, however the tourist office was now just as much a part of Torchwood as Jack was.

When PC Parker stepped into the stations reception area, heading to speak with some member of the public, she wasn't expecting to see who was sitting there, apparently waiting for her. "Sir," she spoke as she saluted to him, "What can I do for you, Sir." She recognised Captain Jack Harkness from a UNIT function she had been attending whilst still in their employ, Captain Harkness had interrupted the party to have an argument or a rather forceful discussion with the senior members of UNIT staff who had supposed to have sent Torchwood various pieces of technology in their possession. They hadn't sent the tech of course, and this had led to the death of a group of school children that had got caught up in the middle of a plot by some alien race, she couldn't remember which, the yelled conversation wasn't that clear in her memory anyway, because Torchwood didn't have the technology needed to disable what the aliens were using as weapons.

Captain Harkness smiled at her before answering, "At ease, you’re not a member of UNIT any longer, stop acting so soldier-like. I'd like to speak to you, somewhere private if possible."

Kateryn nodded, praying fervently that nothing had happened to James, UNIT may have asked the Captain to break the news to her as he was closer to her geographically. She then moved to speak to the desk sergeant quickly before leading Jack to an empty interview room. Let the Captain precede her into the room she then asked, "Will this do, Sir?"

Jack looked around the room taking note of the cameras before nodding and taking a seat, waiting for Kateryn to take the one opposite him, whilst he turned on a small sonic device in his pocket. The device, a handy invention of Toshiko’s, scrambled any technology that was in a certain radius, which meant in this case that all whoever was watching the camera would see was static.

"Sir," Kateryn spoke softly, "Has something happened to James?"

Jack looked up at her question taking in her worried face before rushing to reassure her, "No, he's fine. I haven't been told otherwise, anyway."

She nodded, quiet for a few minutes before asking, "What do you want then, Sir. If you don't mind me asking?"

Jack chuckled, "Never be afraid to ask questions. This conversation does concern your husband, but there is nothing wrong with him. He will be working in Cardiff from 0900 hours Monday morning."

Kateryn looked at him in shock, "But, the nearest UNIT base is Port Talbot."

Jack nodded, "He's on a list that I sent to Colonel Mace earlier today. I'm commandeering nine members of UNIT staff for Torchwood, when my computer tech noticed that your husband had put in for a transfer that was being neglected, and that he had the necessary skills for the post it was decided he should be on the list.”

The smile that spread across Kateryn’s face could have illuminated the whole room, “Thank you, sir” she exclaimed as she hugged him.

This time Jack let out a full laugh at her actions, “I am here for another reason though, as you have history with UNIT, you know about the work of Torchwood. Since your husband’s file was pointed out to me, with the link to your own file, I’ve been wondering why you left UNIT. From what is shown in your file, you would have made your way up in UNIT rather quickly had you stayed.”

The smile that had lit up Kateryn's face disappeared, "I couldn't stay." she whispered, "They never did anything for people, everything was for UNIT. They didn't care about the little people, so I left, knowing that the police force would welcome me back."

Jack sat contemplating what she had said and the happiness in her voice when she spoke of the force, knowing that he was doing the right thing not bringing her the full way into Torchwood. "I know you know the secrecy that will come with James' new job, but I have an offer for you as well."

At that she nodded, indicating that he should make the offer, although by the look on her face it looked as though she had some idea of what he wanted. "I'd like to hire you for Torchwood. You wouldn't be at the hub or anything like that unless it's absolutely necessary, I'd like you to stay with the Cardiff Police and be our in-house liaison officer."

She studied him, listening carefully to his offer, it was tempting and it would mean that James would be able to talk to her about what he was doing at work. "So, I'd be dealing with the police for you, involved with cases with you if necessary, but my job would be much the same as it has been."

At this Jack nodded, "Yes, pretty much all you just said, with the added benefit of no secrets between you and James. I know he had special dispensation to talk to you about things within UNIT, but I can' t afford to do that within Torchwood, or anyone with outside partners would want the same. At least you know the background and rules of the game already, having played it yourself so to speak.”

“All right, I’m in.” Kateryn answered, “When shall I report for duty, Captain.”

“As I’ve said, we’re not the military. I run a pretty informal ship, just call me Jack. The UNIT transfers are due to be at base by 0900 hours on Monday, with our medics arriving 0900 on Sunday. So Monday at 9am at Roald Dahl Plass, I’ll have someone there to meet you.” Jack replied.

After a couple more minutes of conversation Jack stood ready to leave, quickly turning off the sonic device, Tosh really needed to think of a name for her creation, restoring normal function to the cameras. He then left the station, going straight back to the hub to deal with anything that may have come up, either with the rift or from stubborn UNIT officials.

When Ianto arrived home with Harry the first thing he noticed after entering the flat was the tree, the second was the mess. Jack had left bags of decorations as well as the box for the tree in the middle of the living room. Picking up the box for the tree and taking Harry’s coat he put them both in the hall cupboard. When he re-entered the living room it was to see Harry sat on the floor looking out the window, speaking softly so as not to startle him Ianto asked, “Is there anything you want to ask me Harry?”

Harry looked up at Ianto, saying nothing as his young mind started to find what question he wanted answered first, once he had settled on what he wanted to ask he nodded. “You spoke about mum and dad, did you know them? What were they like?” he asked, curiosity and longing could be heard in his voice as he spoke.

Ianto smiled as he sat down on the couch, patting the seat next to him indicating to Harry that he should join him. “Yes, I knew them. I was in the same year as them at Hogwarts, which is the school that we went to, to learn how to do magic. Hogwarts is split into four houses, which is like dorm families, Hufflepuff for the loyal, Ravenclaw for the intelligent, Gryffindor for the brave and Slytherin for the ambitious and cunning.”

Harry nodded, “What were you? What were mum and dad?”

“I was in Slytherin, so was your mum. Your dad was in Gryffindor. Lily, your mum, was one of my best friends, she, myself and our other friend Severus were inseparable. Lily was kind, sweet and everyone loved her, she became the leader of the Slytherins, but was as protective as any lion when someone she cared for was hurt. She loved you like nothing on Earth, she called you her little Emerald Serpent, because of your eyes. James, your father had three close friends, they made up a group of pranksters in school. I didn’t know your father very well, but he was brave and strong and loved you and your mum to bits.” Ianto explained.

Knowing that he had to explain to Harry a bit more about himself and Jack, he started to tell him who they were, what they did for work and how he couldn’t tell anyone, just like how he shouldn’t talk about magic in front of those that don’t know about it. He also explained how he was related to Jack and about Jack’s immortality, deciding to the have the conversation without Jack being present in case Harry didn’t react well to the news, he didn’t want Jack to be hurt by anything Harry might say. He needn’t have worried however as all Harry had said in response to that was, ‘So is that one of daddy’s gifts.’ 

At that Ianto had smiled and replied, telling Harry how it had been a gift from someone who had loved his daddy very much. When Harry had asked who gave him the gift Ianto had thought about what he should say before explaining that it had been a gift from Harry’s aunt Rose, but that he couldn’t see or meet her as she now lived far away. Harry had accepted this answer and had asked to be told more about his mother.

They continued to talk for the next few hours, Ianto telling Harry of some of the things that his mother had done during her time at Hogwarts. As he had spun the tales Harry had moved closer to him on the sofa and was curled up against his side, by the time he had finished the last story he had time for Harry was sound asleep. Standing up as carefully as he could, he rearranged Harry into a comfortable position on the couch, before walking as silently as he could into the kitchen to make dinner.

By the time he had dished up the Spaghetti Bolognese Jack had arrived home, having made his way into the kitchen after noticing the sleeping Harry. He had come up behind Ianto when he had not been paying attention, placing his arms around him, trapping him against the counter he then placed a soft kiss on his neck before whispering so as not to wake Harry, “Hello gorgeous, that’s everything sorted, we will have a team of fifteen by Monday lunchtime.”

Ianto turned in Jacks arms, giving him a quick kiss before replying, “Hmm, that’s good, means more time off.” Looking up at Jack through his eyelashes he smirked at the look that crossed his face, then turning serious he informed Jack of everything that he had told Harry about them and how they would tell him of their engagement together over dinner.

Jack just nodded as he leant against Ianto, glad that his son had accepted his immortality so easily and that Ianto had explained it to him in a way that made it seem like a gift and not a curse, as he didn’t want Harry to have to deal with the idea of so much loss at such a young age. As Ianto tried to pull himself out of Jack’s arms to go and wake Harry, Jack pulled him closer tightening the arms around him like a vice. “I ordered our rings today.” He said softly, “I know you’ll have rings handed down through your family that you’ll want to use for our bonding, but I decided that we should have engagement rings as well. They are being custom made, but the jeweller says that they should be ready in about a week.”

Ianto stared at him in shock before letting a small smile cross his face, he kissed Jack softly, whispering against his mouth as he did so, “Thank you.” He then pulled away and entered the living room to wake Harry for dinner. 

Dinner was a pleasant affair, they had explained to Harry that they would be getting married, well they were going to have a bonding ceremony, but Harry would find the term marriage a lot easier to understand. Once they had finished eating they went as a group back through to the living room to decorate the tree as a family. Ianto put the lights up on the tree, while Jack and Harry opened the other decorations. They decorated the living room working as a team, Harry decorated up as far as he could reach, Jack doing the higher up things and Ianto decorating the space in between. Although the angel on top of the Christmas tree was placed by Harry who was lifted by Jack.

Before they knew it was time for Ianto to leave to meet with Severus, he placed a kiss on Harry’s forehead telling him to be good, then kissed Jack echoing the sentiment. Once he had left Jack had sent Harry to his room to get a pair of pyjamas and to meet him in the bathroom, while he was in his room Jack had run Harry a bath. The bath was a fun experience for both children, Jack not even pretending to be grown up, after drying Harry and getting him dressed in his pyjamas Jack told him to go and get into bed and he’d be there in a moment.

When Jack entered Harry's room it was to find him tucked up in the bed staring up at the ceiling, he placed the cup of water on the bedside table in case harry wanted a drink during the night and the tucked him in, kissing him on the forehead. He was about to leave when he heard the small voice ask, "Daddy, can you tell me a story like Uncle Owen did last night?"

At the look on the small face Jack couldn't say no, he sat on the edge of Harry's bed, "What type of story?" he asked.

Harry looked up at him, his brow creasing in thought before he replied, "Can you tell me about Auntie Rose?"

Jack smiled at the thought of the woman he considered a sister, he then began to tell Harry the tale of how he had met her, and how she had then introduced him to the Doctor, whom Harry would meet on Sunday. He then told him of how Rose would loved to have met him and his Tad as they made him happy, but she now stayed so far away. By the time he had finished Harry was sound asleep.

Standing quietly Jack made his way out of the room, turning off the light on the way. He then went back to the bathroom to clean up the spilt water before Ianto got home and killed him for the mess. Taking a shower he then dried off before pulling on a pair of sweat pants and going to bed early to wait for Ianto to arrive home. Taking his laptop that was now set up for remote access to the Hub so he could work through some things he needed to deal with and find somewhere for his new members off staff to stay when they arrived.

Ianto apparated to the Silver Lily, arriving a few minutes before seven and waiting patiently for Severus to arrive. When he did they entered the pub, nodded to the barman and made their way through into the back of the pub, where they could talk privately. The Silver Lily was a pub that they had opened as a tribute to their serpent, with so many people being fooled into thinking she was a Gryffindor they had have something that was a tribute to who she was and not what people believed her to be.

Once they were in the room Severus immediately took out his wand and began to ward the room from intruders, and stopping people from being able to overhear their conversation. Ianto then took out the sonic device Jack had given him earlier that day, turning it on to stop any muggle means of eavesdropping . Only once both men were completely sure that no-one would be able to interrupt them or glean any information from their conversation did they speak.

Severus immediately launching into a series of questions, "What did you mean yesterday? What did you mean Harry was being abused and it being covered up and the Dursleys not being related to him? Petunia was Lillian’s sister, I grew up around them.”

Ianto then explained everything that they had found out in the last 16 hours to the other Slytherin, showing him all the documentation to prove everything. He also explained about his involving of Amelia and how they intended to deal with the situation, including blood adopting Harry so that no-one would be able to remove Harry from his or Jack's care.

He then asked if Severus would be willing to make the potions that Harry needed to get better and the blood adoption potions. Severus had agreed, promising to do everything he could do for Lillian's son. When asked if he would become one of Harry's godfathers Severus was unsure as to what to do, finally he answered. "No, I can't. I won't put him through the stigma of having a Death Eater for a godparent."

At that Ianto had began to lose his temper, "You just promised to do whatever you could for him, but won't become his godparent. He isn't going to care about your past, or what other people say. Especially if he gets the characteristics I think he will for Jack, the only thing he will care about in regards to anyone who would say against you would be about how narrow minded they are. I can see him gaining Jack's lack of regard for other people’s opinions of him and his family, as it is one of Jack's stronger traits."

Severus nodded, "Alright. I'll do it, but don't say I didn't warn you of what will happen when it does." 

They continued to talk about what had been happening in each other’s lives since they had last spoke, and about what they were planning to do over the next few years. Severus talking of his work on the wolfsbane potion and of how teaching dunderheads was annoying the hell out of him, but how it was necessary for him to stay at Hogwarts.

When Ianto had asked why he had to stay there, Severus replied saying how Dumbledore didn't know about any of his properties he owned and he would like to keep it that way and how he had signed a contract that he couldn't terminate with the exception of death. He had signed an employment contract that meant he had to teach at Hogwarts until it ran out, but to make sure he couldn't be ousted from his post and unable to protect Lily's son and his godson Draco he'd made sure that the contract was valid until the end of their seventh year at Hogwarts.

Severus left not long after that, having left the Slytherin King in charge of his snakes, but needing to be in the castle in case Dumbledore needed him for some reason. There was no reason for Dumbledore to know what he was doing, especially not if he was as involved in Harry's circumstances as Ianto believed. Severus had no problems withholding information from Dumbledore to protect his friend and his son, however as a spy who was rather adept at information gathering he was intrigued as to how Ianto got his information and from where. The ward analysis he could have gotten from the Goblins, but it would have cost him quite a bit of money. The wills on the other hand, there is no way the Goblins would give those out, even for a substantial amount of money.

Putting the thought of Ianto’s sources out of his head, he made his way straight to his lab after checking in on his snakes, he had healing potions and an adoption potion to make. He had promised to have the healing potions that Ianto would need to give Harry with him by the next day, using the old method. Severus, Lily and Ianto had had an idea one summer when Ianto was away in Italy to keep in contact, it took quite a bit of research and the work of charms, potions and runes, Lily, Severus and Ianto respectively to do it, but they did manage it. They made communicatory boxes, that they could put letters or objects in and they would go to the person you designated as long as their box was on the network, and as only the three of them knew of them they were secure. However, Lily’s had been broken at the end of their seventh year and they never got around to making her another one, otherwise she would have had secure method of contact with them both while she was in hiding.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It was pointed out to me in a review that it has been almost a year since I updated this fic and for that I am really sorry. Real life coupled with a lack of inspiritation and motivation for this story led to this, and hopefully won't happen again. I don't know when the next update for this will be, but it certainly won't take as long, within the next month at the most, I have a week of holiday coming up from work, half of which I intend to spend writing. Again, I'm sorry for the wait, but thank you to everyone who has held in there waiting for an update, and to everyone who has reviewed, I think I replied to everyone, but sometimes I miss one or people review as guests, so really thank you all for reading and being as patient with me as you have been.

Ianto arrived home to find both Harry and Jack asleep, the second of which confused him as Jack didn't normally sleep, or at least not much, maybe the last few days had taken their toll on him. Shrugging, Ianto undressed, crawling into bed beside his fiancé, fiancé that was definitely something he hadn't been expecting, yes he knew that Jack loved him but he had never expected him to propose to him. He sighed as Jack moved towards him in his sleep, curling around Ianto's body, using him like a hot water bottle, he looked down at Jack a fond smile creeping across his face before he fell into slumber.

When Ianto awoke the next morning it was to find the space next to him empty, he climbed out of bed, making his way blearily to the bathroom. Having a quick shower he then went to find his errant partner, finding him in the living room with Harry was not much of a shock, the fact that he was being read to by Harry was. It was only a child's story, but Harry's pronunciation was spot on, Ianto couldn't be more proud of their son, how he was coming out of the shell he had been forced into by those despicable human beings that called themselves the Dursleys.

Entering the room he dropped a kiss to Harry's forehead, before walking over to the bookshelf and opening what everyone always thought was a decorative box, it was an amazingly designed box, but it was more than a decorative piece, it was his communication box. Opening it he saw the potions that he knew would be there, knowing that Severus would have gone back to Hogwarts and straight to his lab to make the potions to heal Harry. There was also a note saying that Severus would bring the adoption potion and the pain relief potions necessary with him the next day and how Ianto should document Harry's healing process before and after each potion.

Ianto had then grabbed a pen from the coffee table writing a quick 'Thanks' on the back of the parchment before placing it back in the box. He then placed the potions vials on the coffee table before going into the kitchen to get Harry a glass of water, knowing that Harry would want something to keep his mouth moist in-between taking the potions.

The first thing Ianto did when he re-entered the living room was to explain to Harry what he was going to do, he then cast the same set of diagnostic spells he had the other night, to check on Harry's progress so far. He then started to give Harry each potion, recasting the diagnostic charm before each one. Once Harry had finished with the potions, Ianto sent him to take a nap, having assumed that Jack had already fed him, telling him they'd wake him for lunch.

Once Harry had left the room Ianto began to explain everything that he had just done to Jack, explaining how although he isn't completely healed, Harry is as healed as magic can heal him before his blood adoption. He also mention that other things, such as the signs of malnutrition should disappear when the blood adoption takes place.

Ianto then asked something he had been wondering about ever since he had gotten home the night before, "Jack, are you alright? I mean you don't normally sleep, or if you do, it's not for long and that's only really if you're really worn down or have died during the day?"

Jack smiled, "I'm fine. But I was beginning to feel a bit of tiredness slip in, even though I couldn't sleep, so I took a sleeping pill so that I could at least get in a nap, so that I'm running properly with everything that will happen over the next couple of days."

Ianto nodded, thinking about Jack had just said, it made sense. It would be no good for Jack to be exhausted or not completely on form when the Doctor was around, otherwise who would keep the Time Lord out of trouble. Thoughts of the time Lord brought his thoughts onto Martha Jones, leading to thoughts of their new recruits who would be joining them in two days time, knowing that he couldn't slack off anymore he stood.

Jack looked up as his partner moved from where he had been sat on the couch, "What are you doing now?, he questioned.

Ianto turned, Jack's voice breaking through his thoughts, "I'm going to go to the hub and try to organise things for our new recruits arrival. I might have to expand some space, I know that three doctors in Owen's small space would mean having to bring in other medics to patch them up or we'd have to take them to a hospital.

Jack just looked at his partner, before nodding knowing that when Ianto got into his 'I must organise' moods that it was best just to leave him to it. "I had Tosh and Owen start getting things ready yesterday, but I don't know what they have already done." He informed Ianto.

Ianto nodded, giving Jack a kiss before speaking, "I'll be back soon, remember to wake Harry for lunch." He then turned and apparated away muttering about space enhancing charms as he did so. Appearing in the Hub he noticed how empty it looked with no-one there, looking around for signs of the others and not seeing any he smiled. At least if the Hub was empty he could work in peace and hopefully be done even quicker than he had expected.

The first thing he did was make his way down to Owen's domain, deciding to get the area ready for the presence of the extra medics before Owen arrived back from wherever he was to get in his way. He expanded the autopsy bay, knowing that the doctors would more than likely work simultaneously so that they were not left with a backlog of alien autopsies, like Owen usually had. He also took the time to change the layout a bit, space expansion charms being one of his skills, Lily may have been the charms expert but space expansion was more a mix of charms, runic spell casting and arithmantic calculations. He then split the space, leaving the autopsy bay for dead things, but creating an office area for the three doctors and an area to treat live patients. Ianto had never really liked the idea of being patched up on a mortuary table, and was using this as his time to rectify that. The area split into three was all connected, making it easy to go between them, they were easily accessible from the main Hub, but a little bit more secluded as Ianto had constructed some walls from his magic, to give more privacy.

Whilst still in the frame of mind for redecorating for doctors he made his way to one of the unused rooms on the same level as the conference room, knowing that any psychologist would want to be secluded from the rest of the doctors so that her client's privacy and confidentiality concerns were non-existent. He wasn't completely sure of the inner workings of psychologist's or even women's minds, so decided to leave the decoration of the space to Tara when she arrived. His next task was revamping Suzie's old space near the weapons locker for James' arrival, he also expanded the main area as well so that they would be able to fit other desks into the space.

He had just finished levitating furniture up to the main floor from one of the store rooms when the Hub's proximity alarm went off, he turned to see Tosh and Owen coming through the cog door. Nodding to each of them and noting that they were both devoid of anything of alien origin be it device or creature, he wondered whether this was them just arriving at the same time after a late night or if they had been out on a rift alert that had proven to be nothing.

Deciding not to ask, if there was anything they wanted him to know they would tell him, he waited to see Owen's reaction to what he had done with his domain. The high-pitched girly scream was not his initial thoughts of what Owen's reaction would be, he had expected some yelling about how 'a man's medical lab isn't even safe' or 'who touched my stuff', then some polite or polite for Owen mention of thanks. He stood by and watched as after releasing the scream Owen almost bounced from each new section of medical space. If the scream was unexpected, then what happened after that would have been thought of impossible or a catalyst for Armageddon, Owen hugged him. After running through the medical area, he'd run up to Ianto and given him a bone-crushing hug, saying in an almost squeal-like tone, "It's perfect."

A little disturbed by the actions of the doctor, Ianto looked towards Toshiko seeking help or support to free him from the over-happy man. Unfortunately for him she just stood by and giggled at the sight, which if it had been anyone but him in this position he would have to, after all it was Owen giving out hugs and acting like a teenage girl. Owen Harper does not do hugs, acting like a teenage girl, well there is footage stored in the electronic archives, but even that was not really an everyday Owen thing.

Owen finally released him and walked a bit more sedately in the direction of the doctors' domain, embarrassed as he realised what he had done. When Tosh stopped giggling she turned to look around the vastly expanded area, noticing that Suzie's old area was once again functional and other desks and seats had been brought into the main area.

"I ordered the computers we need, I also pulled the we're Torchwood, you'll do as we want card. They should be delivered to the house between five and six tonight, I'm going to collect them with Owen and then we'll set them up." Toshiko said, excitement colouring her tone.

Ianto smiled, not sure whether or not her excitement was due to her love of all things technological or the idea of spending time with Owen. "What are the rift projections for the next few days?", he asked, wondering if it would be quiet enough for him to go home and maybe take Harry to a park or something.

Tosh moved over to her computer, pulling up the rift activity projector, looking at what they were to expect over the next few days before replying. "Everything looks quiet for the next few days, activity has been non-existent, the only thing we've really dealt with in days was the weevil that Jack and Owen lost the other day."

"So if there's no rift activity in the upcoming days what are you planning to do until you have to take the computer delivery?" Ianto questioned.

A small smile spread across Tosh's face, "Well, most likely what we spent the morning doing, Owen is making sure that all the medical files, previous autopsies and all that type of thing are in order on the mainframe, as he knows better than to go into the archives without your permission or a guide."

At that Ianto laughed remembering the last time Owen tried to get something out of the archives, he'd managed to get himself lost, when trying to find a piece of medical technology that was stored in one of the artefact rooms he ended up in one of the rooms filled with personnel files.

The look in Tosh's eyes showed that she knew exactly what he was thinking, "And I will be continuing to work on the various different projects that I'm working on, and don't worry if I come to a bit that I need anything from the archives I'll wait until your next here. Now go, I know you want to go home, we'll be fine, the rift is behaving itself, I have work to do and I don't think we'll be seeing Owen for a while."

Ianto nodded, kissing Tosh on the cheek thanking her before shouting bye to Owen and then apparating back to his flat. He arrived just as Harry sat down to lunch, Jack having decided to let him sleep a little longer before feeding him so as to give the potions time to settle. While Harry was asleep Jack seemed to have made a soup, which from the living room where Ianto had appeared smelt amazing, it was then that he realised that he had yet to eat today. Joining his family in the dining room, Ianto smiled at the sight in front of him, Harry was sat at the table and was tucking a napkin into his top as Ianto had done the previous evening at dinner.

The small family had lunch together during which Ianto informed Jack of the changes he'd made to the Hub, Owen's reaction, and Tosh's rift activity projections. He then suggested that they take Harry to the park or something, an idea that Jack immediately vetoed, saying how Harry shouldn't really leave the flat unless necessary until after the blood adoption. When Ianto had questioned his decision he was told that it would be suspicious to be seen at a play park with one child, then showing up the next day with a child that looked completely different but being called by the same name. Ianto seeing his point agreed, and they spent the day instead telling Harry stories and playing games with him, Owen having bought a few different children's games. Ianto being unsure as to who had had more fun, Harry or Jack.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay so I fail completely, I said an update within a month but that has proved once again not to be the case, real life exploded and the week of holiday I intended to spend writing was overtaken by all sorts, I had a tonne of family stuff to do and despite being on holiday I still ended up having to go into work. I have a few days off at the moment that I intend to spend writing and I have a week of holiday coming up next week so hopefully an update wont take too long. I don't want to give a definite date or approximation as I don't want to disappoint again. Thank you to everyone that has stuck by this fic despite its rather flaky authoress.

Sunday arrived with a re-emergence of Cardiff's most regular form of weather, rain. It was bucketing it down, in typical Cardiff fashion, luckily none of their guests would be walking to their home. The Harkness-Joneses had just sat down to breakfast when the first of their guests arrived, for a Time Lord the Doctor is not what anyone could really call punctual, but Ianto supposed that it was better that he was early rather than late, especially as he was bringing Martha and Tom with him.

Jack had greeted their guests enthusiastically giving both the Doctor and Martha hugs and shaking Tom's hand introducing himself, he then introduced Tom and the Doctor to Ianto and then introduced them all to Harry. Harry seemed to have retracted a bit into his shell at the arrival of these new people, he knew they were coming but the big blue box in the living room was a bit startling to the five year old.

The TARDIS, Ianto thought as he looked at it, just the thought of being anywhere near such an amazing creature astounded him, as it couldn't be called anything else really as it was alive, the TARDIS was definitely not a piece of machinery, no matter how often it was referred to as a time machine. However beautiful she was though, she did stick out, there was no way that Severus or Amelia would be able to ignore the big blue police box in the corner of his front room.

Sighing he walked into the dining room after the others, reading himself to take on a Time Lord, "Doctor," Ianto began, "I think that you'll need to move the TARDIS, she's a bit noticeable where she is and our other guests may not be quiet as accepting of a time machine sitting in the front room."

To Ianto’s surprise the Doctor didn’t make a fuss but rather asked where he could park her that wouldn’t mean he had to venture into the rain to get back to the flat. It was decided that the TARDIS could take up temporary residence in the hallway cupboard as no-one was likely to go in there and so they would not have to explain away a 1960’s police box.

Jack had went with the Doctor to help him park her and to give him to speak to the man in private. Once they had the TARDIS on route to it new parking space Jack had began to speak fumbling a bit over his words. “Doctor, I was, well we were...” he stopped trying to think of what he wanted say before starting again. “We were wondering if you would consent to being one of Harry’s godfathers?”

The look of shock on the Doctor’s face was astonishing, Jack had never managed to shock him before, but had managed to stun him with this. Recovering from his shock the Doctor spoke, “Of course, of course. Blimey,” he stated, “I wasn’t expecting that. I haven’t been a godfather in years, all the things I can teach him.” The maniacal smile on his face almost made Jack regret his choice, but knew in the long run that the Doctor would only teach Harry things that would help him in life, so he wasn’t too worried. Besides if he needed to he could get Martha to exert her control over the Time Lord to get him to behave, he still had no idea what power she had over the Time Lord, but he was positive that it was blackmail, Martha Jones was one devious woman.

After the TARDIS had been moved to her temporary lodgings they had all sat at the dining room table to talk as the small family ate the breakfast the others having eaten before they had arrived. As they ate Martha had spoken about what she had been doing since they had last seen her, and began to ask Jack question after question about who else he had hired and when everyone would start.

Jack had informed both her and Tom of the arrangements for the next day, asking the Doctor if maybe he would stay around for a few days, as both he and Ianto would need to be there for the briefing of the new colleagues the next day and whether he would be willing to look after Harry. Once the alien had replied in an affirmative, therefore bringing himself to the attention of Martha, he was then questioned thoroughly as to what havoc he'd been causing recently and where Donna was.

A suitably affronted look crossed the Doctor's face as he tried to protest that he did not cause havoc, he then explained that Donna was visiting her family as he wasn't sure if it was alright for him to bring a guest or not. He was planning to pick her up once he left, she had said something about wanting to visit a planet where she could get a tan as an apology for leaving her in the hands of her mother even if only for a short time.

They had just finished eating when the doorbell rang, Ianto going to open the door knowing that it would be Tosh and Owen as neither Amelia nor Severus would apparate outside his door in case they were seen by muggles. As soon as he had let them into the flat Tosh had seen Martha and they had immediately pulled each other into a hug then made their way to the couch to catch up, having become rather good friends via email over the last couple of months.

Jack had just finished another round of introductions when there were two almost simultaneous cracks as both Amelia and Severus apparated into the flat. The Torchwood team were used to this as Ianto found it easier at times just to apparate around, the Doctor was used to the unexpected happening before him so just blinked, Martha having seen stranger things whilst travelling with the Doctor just shrugged it off. Tom on the other hand let out a yelp as he scrambled backwards, unsure as to what had happened, causing him to fall off the arm of the chair he had been sitting, prompting a burst of giggles to spring forth from Harry.

Ianto quickly explained the basics of apparition to the stunned medic, he would be getting a full briefing on magic the next day so there was no need for much detail, he then introduced Severus and Amelia to those that they did not know. After everyone had been introduced Ianto began to explain how the blood adoption ceremony would happen, as Severus took out his wand and began running diagnostic after diagnostic spell over Harry to make sure that the potions had taken effect. He then gave Harry a pain potion in an attempt to nullify any painful symptoms of the adoption.

Severus then turned to Ianto giving him the adoption potion, Ianto uncorked the vial and then using his athame he pricked his finger allowing five drops of blood to enter the potion. He then gave both the potion and the dagger to Jack who repeated the process adding five drops of blood. The potion called for a drop of blood from each parent for each year the child had lived.

The potion was then given back to Severus who then added the final ingredient, a lock of hair from the child who is being adopted. Whilst Severus was adding the final ingredient, Jack and Ianto were stating their intent towards Harry, as required by the ceremony.

“I, Ianto Jones, state my intent to adopt you into my family by blood and make you my son. Henceforth, known not as Harry James, but rather Harry Llewellyn. So mote it be.” Ianto intoned the ritual without thought, having been brought up knowing the different ritual forms.

The others in the room, prompted by the magic of the ceremony spoke as one, “So mote it be.”

It was then Jack’s turn, he spoke a bit more unsure of himself than Ianto had been, having not grown up in the culture the ceremony is from made him a bit worried that he would make a mistake.

“I, Jack Harkness, state my intent to adopt you, a member of my family by blood, through blood to make you my son. Henceforth, known not as Harry James, but rather Harry Llewellyn. So mote it be.” Jack intoned, relief crossing his face when those in the room replied, knowing that he hadn’t messed the ritual up.

Jack and Ianto then spoke as one, “Do you accept our intent?”, looking only to Harry. Both smiled when he recited back the line they had practiced with him the day before.

“I, Harry James, accept your intent, and will now be known by the name of your choosing. So mote it be.” Harry said quietly, a small smile on his face.

When the others had responded accordingly, Severus stepped forward with the potion. Jack and Ianto once again spoke in unison, “Blood of my blood, make this my son.”

Harry then drank the potion, it began to take effect almost immediately, as his features began to shift. The potion took about twenty minutes to finish its job, Severus having spent that time pouring various different pain potions sown the child’s throat. The adoption was a painful process, because all of Harry’s bones were being restructured, healing his malnutrition and giving him the stature of a five year old son of Jack and Ianto’s.  
Once the potion had finished its work Harry’s two fathers spoke, “Child of our blood, we name you Harry Llewellyn Harkness-Jones. So mote it be.”

There was an echo of ‘So mote it be’ from their audience and Toshiko and the three medics wore shock slackened expressions on their faces. The shock at the change in the little boy was understandable, he now looked like a miniature version of Ianto with Jack’s eyes and smile.

As soon as they had finished the ritual both Ianto and Severus cast diagnostic spells at Harry, recording the results before stating that he was fine to carry on with the bonding of the godparents. The bonding ceremony consisted of each godparent cutting their hand and pressing it to the cut palm of the child.

It was decided that both godmothers would go first. Ianto pricked both palms of Harry’s hands with his athame, whilst Amelia pulled out her own and cut her palm. Martha was given a plain athame, which could be kept by the person or disposed of so that the blood couldn’t be used in another ritual. She to cut her palm then both she and Amelia clasped one of Harry’s hands each and intoned one after the other.

“I, Amelia Bones, godmother chosen by Ianto Jones, bind myself to you my godson Harry Llewellyn Harkness-Jones.”

“I, Martha Jones, godmother chosen by Jack Harkness, bind myself to you my godson Harry Llewellyn Harkness-Jones.”

Then speaking together, they clearly stated, “So mote it be.” The others in the room echoed the words and watched as golden cords of magic bound Harry’s hand and those of his godmothers.

When the cords of magic dissipated Ianto washed Harry’s hands, casting healing charms on both of his palms. The binding process was then repeated, Severus and the Doctor cutting their palms and binding themselves to Harry.

“I, Severus Snape, godfather chosen by Ianto Jones, bind myself to you my godson Harry Llewellyn Harkness-Jones.”

“I, the Doctor, godfather chosen by Jack Harkness, bind myself to you my godson Harry Llewellyn Harkness-Jones.”

They intoned their binding statements one after the other before closing the binding by stating, ‘So mote it be.’ This was chorused back at them as silver cords of magic encircled their hands. 

The cords had no sooner disappeared than a patronus message had appeared to Amelia, she listened to the message that could only be heard by her before standing up a straight, a grim look crossing her face. “I’m afraid that I shall have to leave, there are some problems in the wizarding world. It appears that Dumbledore’s protection on his saviour have fallen.”, she said, a smirk on her face, something that looked entirely out of place.

She said a quick goodbye to everyone before apparating away. At her disappearance Severus sighed, “I’m going to have to go as well, no doubt Dumbledore will want me for something and if I’m not there he’ll get suspicious.” He also apparated away leaving the Doctor, Harry and the members of Torchwood.

Those left behind looked towards Ianto for direction, after all everything that had just happened was more his area of expertise than theirs, Ianto just smiled before explaining that they had effectively just killed Harry James Potter and registered the birth of Harry Llewellyn Harkness-Jones. 

Harry was no longer paying attention to anything that was being said, he still had his memories of before the adoption, it didn't remove them, but now even when he thought through the memories they didn't have such an effect on him anymore, as he could feel the love his family hold for him. His head felt different though, not on the outside, but rather the inside he knew the outside was different, his whole outside was different. His mind had been one of Harry's retreats as a child not so much as entering his mind, but spending time going through everything he'd ever been taught, going over things in his head had always made them easier to do in real life.

Harry's head did though, there was something different about his mind, searching for the area he used to enter whilst in his cupboard, his memory centre or whatever, he found that he was unable to reach where he had wanted to go. Instead he found himself in a replica of his bedroom, things scattered around in haphazard but organised piles, moving to the bookshelf he picked up one of the 'books' on the shelf and saw his knowledge of certain things flow through his mind.

Realising that he must have somehow entered his mind, and changed what he thought of as a safe place, this must just be a different version of where he had gone before. When he had tried to access his knowledge before the space was always the cupboard under the stairs with his knowledge/memories playing out on the wall beside him.

Harry continued to explore his mental room, but was quickly distracted when he heard someone calling his name. Straining to hear the voice, it was definitely his name he thought, but who was calling him. There it was again he thought, as he heard his name being called, following the voice he left his room, and entered the room from where the voice was coming from. The room was circular with doors leading away from the room and what looked like a large circular control panel for something. However, what captured his attention in the room was the person that the voice belonged to, his godfather, the Doctor. 

"Harry, we need you to come out of your mind now, you need to go back through the door to your room, then you need to think really hard about coming out of your mind and being back in the living room. Can you try that for me?" The Doctor spoke patiently.

Harry nodded, but didn't move continuing to look around the weird room, "Where are we?" he asked. "Wherever we are, it is very pretty."

The Doctor laughed, “This is part of my mental landscape, we are in a representation of the control room of the TARDIS. I’ll show you her for real, when you come out of your mind.”

Harry smiled before making his way back through the door he had just come from yelling back as he went, “Okay, Doc.”


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay so I am really really bad at updating. I apologise to everyone who has been waiting for this chapter if any of you are actually there and haven't already given up on your flighty authoress. Real life has been a bit hectic lately and I haven't had a chance to sit down and write anything for a while, hopefully I can change that this November.

Once Ianto had finished explaining how the blood adoption would have made it seem like Harry Potter was dead, as any tracking devices anyone had tied to Harry would have been blood based, he turned to speak to his son, noticing straight away that he wasn't mentally in the room with them. He had tried calling him a few times but nothing worked, and Ianto had never been adept at legilimency.

Ianto quickly informed the others of what was going on and the Doctor took control of the situation, "I'll try to talk to him in his head, he may have gained some telepathic ability from Jack, it's a common trait in some humans by the 51st century."

At that Tosh asked why he didn't let Jack try then, the Doctor had replied that there was no need to allow Jack to corrupt the boys mind while he is still a child, and that he'd have plenty of time for corrupting him in other ways.

The Doctor placed his hands at either side of Harry's forehead and closed his eyes, he mentally called out to Harry and before long the boy had followed his voice into his mind, a bit surprised by the fact that he was able to walk between the two minds so easily showed that he had definitely inherited some telepathic ability from Jack. He quickly explained what Harry needed to do to get out of his mind and come back to his body, knowing that Jack and Ianto as well as the others were probably worried about the boy. When he saw Harry leave his mind he waited until the small psychic echo of him also disappeared before leaving his mind and opening his eyes, less than a minute after him, Harry followed.

The first thing out of his mouth was, "Can you show me her now?"

Laughing the Doctor looked at their confused audience, clarifying for them, "I promised to show him the TARDIS. Yes, I can show you now, if your dads say that it is okay."

Harry immediately turned to his parents, Jack's eyes looking up to them with Ianto's classic puppy dog eyes, "Please, Tad, Daddy, say yes, please."

Jack just nodded, unable to say no to that look, it was bad enough when Ianto did it and he couldn't refuse, but there was no way that he could refuse Harry anything. How was he going to be an effective parent if he gave in to every look of his sons? 'Oh well', he thought, 'I'll figure it out later.'

The Doctor led Harry to the TARDIS, the others following not far behind, Ianto, Tosh and Owen wanting to see what it was about this TARDIS that made Jack react the way he did to it. As soon he entered the TARDIS, Ianto felt the magic in his veins begin to hum beneath his skin, he knew that she was sentient by why would his magic have this reaction, he kept his confusion buried as he listened to the Doctor talk to his son about the wonders of time and space and the TARDIS' capabilities.

Harry bounced his way around the control room, the TARDIS was pleased to meet him and his father, he didn't know how he knew but she was happy that they were together. His magic, or at least what he was positive was his magic seemed to like the TARDIS too, going so far as to join her in her song. He stopped in front of his Tad, asking something that seemed to stump the others, "Tad, why are you confused?"

Ianto looked startled, that was something that he hadn't been expecting, he may not have been good at legilimency, but his occlumency was perfect, which made hiding his emotions and thoughts so much easier. It should have been impossible for Harry to know that he was confused. The others looked just as confused as Ianto felt, how did Harry know what Ianto was feeling.

Then Harry spoke again, "Now you're all confused, why are you confused?"

It was the Doctor who cottoned on to what was happening before the others, and Harry turned to him when he felt his emotions change from confusion to understanding. "He's an empath", the Doctor spoke quietly, but everyone heard him clearly.

"Huh?" Harry spoke, "I'm a what? Why does that make everyone confused?"

The Doctor laughed, "An empath, Harry, is someone with the ability to feel other people's feelings. Your Tad was confused about something, and you felt that, everyone else was confused as to how you felt that he was confused."

As the Doctor explained to Harry Ianto let out a small noise, Harry turning to him immediately after the Doctor finished, "Tad, why are you worried? And you still haven't answered why you were confused."

Ianto sighed, knowing that he couldn't get out of answering, his son seemed to have inherited his persistence. "I was confused, because my magic reacted to the TARDIS and I don't know why." He answered, hoping that Harry would forget feeling his worry.

A smile crossed Harry's face, "The TARDIS is happy to meet your magic, and they're singing together, mine is as well. But why are you worried?"

Ianto thought for a moment before speaking, "I'm happy for you, being an empath is an amazing gift, but I'm worried about how being an empath will affect you. The wizarding world for example are going to be dangerous to you if they find out, empaths are rare and having someone with the ability to tell if someone is lying by matching their words to their emotions is after all a great commodity. The fact that you can feel my emotions through my shields worries me as well, I know both your dad and the Doctor have mental shields as well. You shouldn't be able to feel our emotions."

The others all turned contemplative at that, each trying to come up with their own theories as to why Harry could breach the others metal shields. It was the Doctor that came up with a valid point, "We may have shields, but Harry doesn't, maybe the fact that he has no shields means that he is able to sense any and all emotions of others in his mind as he can't stop the approach of the emotions."

This was a plausible explanation, but to make sure, the Doctor scan Harry to make sure that there was no other reason, as well as using the scan to identify any other gifts he may have gained from the adoption and bonding to his godparents. The TARDIS completed the results, displaying them on the small screen in both English and Gallifreyan.

The Doctor let out a sharp whistle at the results, "Well, I was right about his lack of shields, I think if we each teach him to shield we should be able to make sure that the emotions around him don't hurt as much." He replied looking at Jack and Ianto, "We each have different methods of shielding, so if we teach him all three his mind should be impenetrable to others and it should lessen the feelings he feels from others. There is no way to stop him from being able to sense emotions completely, but this will be the best method for us to take in his training."

Jack and Ianto both nodded, any way they could lessen the pain their child may feel, they would. Looking to the Doctor they indicated that yes they would proceed in this method, before asking him to continue with what else the TARDIS had found.

"Harry, also appears to be mildly telepathic, he may have got that from either Jack, or as a result of his bonding to me as his godfather. His brain cells are enhanced, I think he has gained 51st century brain cells, which should make things easier for him to learn and remember." He paused, looking again at the screen, "He also appears to have something clinging to that scar on his forehead, whatever it is, the TARDIS doesn't seem to like and has began making preparations to cleanse it from him."

At that Ianto became more alert, moving to look at the screen, the Doctor moving to allow him access. Ianto looked down the lists of gifts that his son possessed, taking note of different things like his affinity for potions and healing, most likely due to his bonding with Severus and Martha respectively and an increased sense of justice, most likely from Amelia. One thing that did catch his attention was the word parselmouth, his head snapped towards his son as soon as he read the word, his eyes flicking up to his scar.

Knowing that he had to make sure he pulled his wand out, whispering "Serpensortia" he watched as a snake appeared from his wand. Looking at Harry he spoke but three words, "Talk to it."

The others in the room looked confused, but no more than Harry himself. However, he did as he Tad instructed and spoke, "Hello" he hissed at the snake. The snake stopped were it slithered turning towards the direction of the voice, "A speaker" it hissed back at him, "Master"

They all stared in shock at Harry and the snake, with the exception of Ianto who just smirked and banished the snake. Turning to the Doctor he spoke, "Is it possible for the TARDIS to cleanse Harry now, or does she need to prepare, I think I know what the problem is."

The Doctor seemed to converse with the ship before replying, "The old girl says that she is ready when we are. You think you know what the problem is, what is it?"

Ianto crossed the control room to where Harry was standing, touching the scar that had not vanished with the blood adoption, "This was given to Harry the night his parents died, I think if I'm right that Voldemort when the he tried to kill Harry, managed to trap part of his soul within him."

The Doctor gasped, "But to have done that he must have split his soul before, for him to have managed to unintentionally store part of himself within a child."

Ianto nodded, "It makes sense, from what Severus told me, Voldemort always made references to having become immortal and having taken steps to make sure he survived death. I'm not completely sure where, but most likely in one of the books in my family library, I came across the term Horcrux, it sounds like the sort of thing that Voldemort would do to ensure his survival."

"Right," The Doctor spoke, "Martha, can you get Harry settled in the med bay. Jack if it is a soul fragment we're dealing with we'll need a containment vessel, the TARDIS should have something. Take the first right after the wardrobe, third left, up the stairs, to your right should be a store room, the TARDIS will show you what we need."

Martha and Jack both moved to do their respective tasks, Ianto was moving to follow Martha and Harry, when he heard a small beeping noise, he turned in the direction of the noise, coming to face Toshiko who was holding her PDA in her hand. "Sorry," she spoke, "Weevil, come on Owen. We'll be back later."

Ianto nodded, turning to Tom as he did so, "I know you don't officially start till tomorrow, but would you mind going with them, I'd prefer a group of three going rather than two."

When Tom nodded, Ianto shouted to Owen that there was a spare under the driver's seat in the SUV, knowing the Doctor's opinion on guns, trying to be sensitive towards his son's godfather.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the long wait for the update, life has been hectic, I was in a car crash, then work got mental over Christmas, and I have only gotten back to writing in the last week as I am still in a lot of pain with my back if I sit or stand for long periods of time. I am about to start work on the next chapter, the reactions in the wizarding world, but I have no idea how long it will be for an update so I apologise in advance.
> 
> I'd like to thank everyone who has stuck with me through long periods of waiting, and thank everyone for all the reviews. I am sorry if I haven't replied to everyone, I try to reply to them all, but it has gotten away from me recently, every review is appreciated though.

Ianto and the Doctor then made their way to the medical bay once the others had left, to be joined by Jack five minutes later. He was carrying what looked almost like a Russian doll, but made of a metal of some kind. He handed it to the Doctor before stepping aside, Harry was sat on a medical couch with Martha stood close by talking to him about different types of medicines, how they came to be on that topic no-one knew.

Martha moved to the opposite side of the room when the Doctor signalled her, he then told Harry to lie back and that the TARDIS would connect with his mind to force the foreign presence from his head, and allow him to contain whatever it was. He was instructed not to try and force the TARDIS out of his mind in case he did something that might further link the presence in his head to his mind or magical core, which would mean that nothing short of death would be able to remove the fragment.

The process was underway rather quickly, neither the TARDIS nor the Doctor wanting to hang around much in case the soul fragment was aware of what was happening around it and tried to link itself further into Harry's mind to stop its destruction. After a moment or two a bright light enveloped Harry and a black mist began to raise from his forehead, the Doctor springing into action and capturing the mist into the containment contraption.

Harry stayed wrapped in the golden cocoon for another ten minutes, the Doctor having assured his parents that he was fine and that the TARDIS was just helping to heal the area of his mind that the soul fragment had taken up residence in. When the glow dissipated they could see his scar was gone and his forehead was completely healed, this prompted Jack to ask the Doctor something that had been worrying him, "Doctor, was Harry's healing due to help from the TARDIS or due to his having my blood flowing through his veins."

The Doctor looked also to the cut, "A bit of both." he replied, "One thing that Harry gained from the adoption was the ability to heal quicker, but he isn't immortal, you don't have to worry about that." He then began to speak again, answering what he was sure was to be Jack's next question, "Neither will any children you father or that you carry yourself."

At that Jack nodded, a look of relief crossing his face, he didn't know if he would be able to live with himself if he cursed any of his children to an eternal life. He ignored the look of shock on Martha's face, she had just seen a child's features and personality be changed by blood, a soul fragment banished from his mind, not to mention all the things she had seen during her time with the Doctor, and the idea of a pregnant man shocked her.

Almost as if knowing his thoughts, or maybe he just knew him too well, Ianto laughed. His serious demeanour cracking as he fell to the floor sniggering helplessly at the look of shock on Martha's face and the look of semi-exasperation on Jacks.

Harry smiled at his parents, before getting up from the couch going to where the Doctor stood, looking up at him with puppy dog eyes, he spoke, "The TARDIS says that there is a book in the library you have to give me about empathy and shielding. She says it's on the second level, the second row, tenth bookcase from the right and halfway along the top shelf. She said that it is too high up for me to get myself and that I was to ask you to get it for me."

The Doctor looked shocked for a moment before appearing to converse with his ship once more before walking off in the direction of the library Harry following closely on his heels. Once they left Martha turned to Jack, "Can you seriously carry a baby?"

At his nod she let out a small shriek, "Do you plan to have any more children then? A brother or sister for Harry?"

Jack just looked at Ianto, who had by now come out of his fit of giggles, Ianto sighed knowing that Jack wanted him to answer. "We don't know yet, we've only had Harry for four days. And if we did have any other kids I can see me being the one who has to carry them, I can't see Jack coming out of the field unless absolutely necessary. You know him big damn hero." He replied a small smile crossing his face at his words.

Martha stared at Ianto, "You can carry babies as well?" she asked, her tone belaying her disbelief.

"Yep", Ianto said, "Magical, me. You'll get the whole briefing on the magical world tomorrow with the other new recruits. That reminds me," he began turning to Jack, "Gwen should be in on that briefing as well she still doesn't know that I'm a wizard."

Jack nodded, "I know. Well everyone will be there for nine anyway so we can get it over and done with all at once, magic, you, the lot."

Harry followed the Doctor throughout the corridors of the TARDIS towards the library, after making a pit stop at the Doctor's room on the way where he placed the little metal container he had into a cabinet, before locking it. Once they were in the library Harry let a large smile cross his face as he took in everything around him, the sight and the smell of the books almost overpowering him. He could tell as soon as he entered the library that these books were old, and he made a promise to himself and to the TARDIS that he would let no harm come to the book she was allowing him to borrow.

However, the sight and smell of the books was nothing compared to the emotion coming from some of the books, some almost radiated happiness, others sadness, some even radiated the feeling of death and darkness. It was then that he made the decision never to judge a book by its cover, but to value the content and make his decision or the knowledge it contained after he had read it. He wasn't completely sure of the emotions, whether or not they stemmed from the content of the books, or from a lingering psychic echo of the person who had been reading the book. He was able to filter the emotions though, the TARDIS having helped him build a set of rudimentary shields and shown him how to acknowledge the emotions before letting them go so that he was not overwhelmed by the emotions that he encountered.

The Doctor eventually came back downstairs with the book that the TARDIS had recommended and another couple that he placed into a small carry bag then handed the bag to Harry. "I thought you might like to read those others as well."

Harry simply nodded his thanks to the Doctor before following him back to the console room to meet his parents and his aunt Martha. When they got there though it appeared as though they had already left, they made their way back out of the TARDIS into the flat, finding the others sat in the living room, Martha sat on the couch with Jack and Ianto sharing the chair. The Doctor took the free space on the couch next to Martha whilst Harry sat at his parents’ feet and began to look through the books the Doctor had lent him.

The one the TARDIS had recommended was a book simply entitled 'EMPATHY - All you need to know', the others that the Doctor had picked out had varied titles such as, 'Mental Control for Monkeys' and 'The Mind - Magic, Myth and Science'. He picked up the book that the TARDIS had recommended for him and started to look through it, looking first at what each section was called before flipping back to the front of the book. It was not a small book by any stretch of the imagination and it would definitely take him a while to get through it, but if it was something that he needed to read he would work through every page, no doubt with the help of his new parents.

He looked up at them quickly, he had parents now, he wondered how his life would change now. He had his own room and people who seemed to care for him, like his aunt and uncle had cared for Dudley, but he hoped that he was treated differently than Dudley. He wanted to be nothing like his cousin, the toys he had in his room were more than enough, he didn't want to be greedy. He would prefer his new family to spend time with him than give him things. His parents seemed to be talking about their work, and explaining something to Uncle Doctor.

He hadn't got far in his reading when he was once more pulled into conversation in the room by his aunt Martha getting ready to leave. She gave him a hug, speaking quietly to his parents for a moment then telling him that she would see him soon. After another round of hugs, she left heading to meet Tom at their hotel for the evening. Once it was just him his parents and his uncle Doctor he went back to his book, he wanted to understand as much as he could about who and what he was. He didn't want his parents to have to worry about the wizarding world finding out about his empathy, he wanted to be able to control it so that they never knew.

"If it is okay with Harry then I have no problem with it." He heard his uncle say, all three adults in the room turning to look at him.

"What?" He asked politely, "I missed what you asked."

"If it is alright with you, I will look after you tomorrow whilst your parents go into work to explain to their new staff about their roles and a complete briefing on the magical world." The Doctor explained.

Harry just nodded, he had no problem with that, he didn't mind staying with his uncle rather than meeting a lot more new people. He knew he would meet the new members of staff soon, but he didn't want to meet them all at once. "That's okay. Can we play with TARDIS tomorrow?" Harry asked.

His uncle threw his parents a quick look, obviously asking for their permission before agreeing to anything. His Tad nodded, "As long as you don't run off anywhere to sight see or save the world, we don't mind."

Harry Smiled, his parents and godparents were the best. He couldn't wait to spend more time with his other godparents, but uncle Doctor would keep him occupied tomorrow and he would hopefully see the others again soon. Maybe Aunt Amelia would bring Suzy again, she was fun to play with.


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think this must be the quickest that you have had an update from me in ages 10 days :) This chapter was surprisingly easy to write and has mostly written itself today. I gave up on my pc and transferred the fic over to my laptop so that i can write lying down as it is less painful. Hopefully I will have another update for you soon. The first real foray into the magical world, let me know what you think :)

Amelia Bones apparated straight into her office at the heart of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. She took a quick look at her desk, noting that the files that were there hadn't been when she had left the night before, she no doubt had a tonne of things to go through, but that would have to wait for another time. She left her office, looking around at the chaos that was the auror department, the aurors rushing in and out on different assignments, some doing paperwork, and some looking completely frazzled.

She made her way towards a group of aurors that were being briefed, looking for the man giving the briefing. "Moody report." She barked at him, letting him know not to cross her and let her know exactly what was going on.

"Headmaster Dumbledore informed us that the wards surrounding the residence of Harry Potter have fallen and that the boy is missing. We are now setting up a task force to look for the child." Moody reported. "We will be searching all known locations of former Death Eaters as well as the seedier sides of our world to recover the child."

Amelia shook her head, this was why her department didn't work as well as it should, people were so used to seeing Black and White. If something went wrong with the child of light, it was the immediate fault of the Dark side. "What wards were on the property and when did they fall? What time did the child disappear? What do his guardians have to say on the matter?"

Moody looked at her for a moment, before he seemed to realise that he didn't actually know the answers to those questions. "I am not sure, the Headmaster did not leave the ward schematic, or any other real information other than that the child was missing and that we find him as quickly as possible."

"I believe in that case that we have a small team searching places like Diagon Alley and its surrounding alleys for the child whilst we make our enquiries into how he disappeared and from where. We wouldn't want to draw attention to the fact that the saviour of the wizarding world has disappeared after all." Amelia stated, dismissing a small group of aurors to search for the child, and indicating that Moody and a few others should join her in her office.

Once in her office the door closed and the room warded against spying she spoke, “Moody, I want you to question the relatives, find out when the wards fell, why they fell, what happened, was the child there at the time, and what they know about his wareabouts now.”

“Robards,” she then barked out, “Deal with the goblins, I need to know everything about those wards, what they were, how strong they were, what could get through, why they would fall.”

“The rest of you,” she indicated the other three men, “I want you to start making subtle inquiries into those in our world who would like nothing more than to get their hands on the child. Do so discretely, with focus on anyone who has acted odd or suspiciously recently.”

They all agreed quickly disapparating to get on with their assigned jobs with the exception of Moody who hung back for a minute. He looked at her for a couple of seconds before speaking, “You have a feeling about this don’t you?” He asked. Amelia had been known for her ‘feelings’ on things for years, something that had helped her acieve the position she had now.

“I have a feeling that something isn’t right about this yes.” She replied. “Which is why I am going to go speak with Headmaster Dumbledore to get his account for myself.”

Moody just nodded before he too left to complete his assigned task, hoping that they could recover the child quickly, they didn’t want him left with Death Eaters or whatever undesirables had him.

Amelia stared around her office for a moment, preparing herself for the meeting ahead. She knew that Dumbledore was going to drag his feet and tell her nothing of importance, but it was something that she had to do. She had to fully investigate, even though she already knew the truth. She did wonder if the Headmaster would try to fob her off with a story about the wards falling, or if he would actually admit that all the devices that he no doubt had attuned to Harry’s blood were no longer working due to the boy’s death.

She put on her travelling cloak before apparating to the gates of Hogwarts, gaining access and then walking up the snow covered path to the castle. Once inside she made her way straight to the gargoyle that guarded the Headmaster’s office, requesting entrance and then taking the spiral staircase up to the office. She knocked briskly on the door, pushing it open and entering when she was called to do so. She felt like a school girl all over again, being called to the Headmasters office, something that was unexplainable to her. She wasn’t being called, she was there of her own accord, she was a grown woman, an accomplished witch and a fantastic auror, she was not intimidated.

The office was almost full to bursting when she entered, a few of the teachers, McGonagall and Snape, the Weasley’s, Mundungus Fletcher and Remus Lupin to name but a few, all members of Dumbledore’s precious order of phoenix. “Headmaster Dumbledore,” she began only to be interrupted.

“Madame Bones, how lovely to see you. What can I do for you today?” Dumbledore asked her inviting her to take a seat, and then offering her tea and a lemon drop, both of which she declined as she sat.

“I’d like to speak with you privately about an on-going matter.” Amelia requested, wondering whether or not he would stall and how quickly the people in the office would clear out.

The Headmaster agreed and people started filing out of the office, through the fireplace and the doorway. Severus made brief eye contact with her before leaving, indicating with a small nod that he was heading to inform Ianto of the meeting that had just taken place and that he would let her know as well. The room cleared fairly quickly, leaving her alone with the Headmaster who seemed to appear rather haggard once the room had cleared, he had obviously been putting on a front with his order, hoping to keep them in the dark about the death of the Child of Light.

“How can I help you Amelia?” Dumbledore asked, peering at her over the top of his halfmoon spectacles.

“I need to ask you a few questions in relation to Harry Potter’s disappearance. When did you first register a disturbance in the wards?” Amelia asked.

“A few hours ago the ward monitor began to whistle letting me know that there was a breech in the wards, before completely shattered indicating that the wards had fallen.” Dumbledore replied, showing her a broken metal object that he had been using to monitor the wards at Privet Drive.

Amelia said nothing for a few minutes as she took down a few notes with a quill, “I’ll need to take the monitor with me, Albus. You know the procedure. What wards were on the property?”

“Of course.” Albus replied, not looking happy about having to relinquish the monitor. “The usual household wards of course for security and protection, then there were blood wards based on his mother’s blood, and his aunts love for him, tied to him calling the place home.”

Amelia just nodded, she hadn’t read the goblins ward analysis yet, but she was sure that there was nothing as complex as a love-based blood ward, after all Lily hadn’t actually been blood related to Petunia. If he was telling the truth about the ward reacting to Harry considering Privet Drive home though, it meant he was lying about when the wards fell, as Harry hadn’t considered the place home since he had moved in with Jack and Ianto and they had assured him that he could stay with them and that he would never be returning to his aunts care.

“And once the wards had fallen?” Amelia questioned.

“I made my way straight to the residence to find out what happened, the boy was nowhere to be found. His relatives had no idea where he was or who had taken him. As far as I could tell they had been charmed or under a compulsion to not even remember that the child had been at home that day.” Albus responded. “I was surprised to find that the child’s relatives were unharmed, but whoever took the child must have been attempting to do so unnoticed. I then contacted the aurors straight away to get them to start looking for the boy.”

“Is there anything else you would like to add?” Amelia asked, wondering if he would mention that the items he had tied to the child’s blood had also broken.

He didn’t though and soon she was leaving the office via the fireplace to return to her office, hoping for an update from her underlings. She knew that there was nothing wrong with Harry and he was perfectly happy and healthy were he now was, but for appearance sake she had to investigate the disappearance of Harry Potter. She just wondered how on earth she was supposed to do it, she didn’t want to waste resources, she knew that ‘Harry Potter’ was now technically dead, it was just getting Dumbledore to admit that. If he was to admit that the boys blood no longer responded to the monitoring charms that he had on it they could call of the search for the child. The only other way they could prove that the search was futile would be the goblins, she thought for a few minutes before nodding decisively. She would speak to Ianto and Jack and see what they thought, but it would probably be in the best interests of everyone if the goblins announced the death of the Child of Light.

~

Severus Snape apparated to the edge of the Hogwarts wards in the Forbidden Forest before crossing them, a privilege of being keyed to the wards as a teacher and Head of House, meant that he didn’t need permission to cross the wards. He then made the walk back to the castle at a slow pace, stopping to collect potions ingredients on the way. After all, Dumbledore had yet to summon him, and he would need an excuse as to why he was in the forest and what he had been up to. Replenishing his stocks would not look odd, especially as it was something that he did quite often. He preferred to collect his own ingredients whenever possible, something that the Headmaster was well aware of.

When the patronus message reached him he picked up speed, leaving the forest in favour of the castle and making his way up to the Headmaster’s office. Spitting the password, ‘lemon drops’, at the gargoyle he made his way up to the circular room, that was filling up quickly. He took a quick look around the room, everyone there looked rather anxious, worried as to why they had been gathered together when their world had been in relative peace for the last few years. He seemed to be the only one who had any idea as to why they were there, something that he kept hidden behind his usual expression when at these meetings, a blank mask.

“I’m afraid that I have some bad news.” Albus started once everyone had arrived. “Earlier today the wards that I placed around young Harry Potter’s residence fell, and the boy is missing.”

The room erupted with noise, everyone trying to talk over each other, and nothing really getting said. Finally Dumbledore quietened the room before speaking again, “I have alearted the aurors and they are looking for the child, something that I ask all of you to do as well. We must do this quietly though, we don’t want to alert the media that Harry is missing, or there will be mass panic.”

Dumbledore then turned to look at Severus, “Use your contacts, see if anyone has heard anything about the boy. I am sure that if any of the Death Eaters have the boy word will have somehow gotten to Lucius Malfoy.”

Severus just nodded, knowing that he needn’t bother asking as he knew exactly where the child was. He was surprised that Dumbledore was going along with this ruse however, he knew that any blood monitors that the Headmaster had were destroyed, the old man should believe Harry was dead. He wondered if maybe the man was questioning it, or if he was perhaps trying to hide his negligence where the child was concerned.

“Mundungus, if you can keep your ears to the ground in the shadier sides of our world it would be much appreciated. Remus if I could ask you to try with the other wolves, I don’t know how cooperative they will be, but we should at least try.” Dumbledore spoke.

They spoke for a short while longer, coordinating a hidden search for the child, before Madame Bones appeared needing to speak with the Headmaster, at which point the members of the order all began to leave the office. Severus shared a brief look with the witch before leaving to his rooms, ostensibly to get in touch with the Malfoy patriarch, but really to contact Ianto to let him know how the meeting had gone and how Dumbledore was reacting to the situation. He also intended to let him know that Amelia was meeting with him alone, so that the other man was aware and they could all keep an eye on her to make sure that he hadn’t tried to tamper with her memory or anything of the sort.

Once in his rooms, he pulled towards him some parchment and ink and began to write to his friend, before sending the letter through his box to Ianto. He then stared into the fire for a minute before deciding, Dumbledore wanted him to seek out Lucius, he may as well spend some time with his other godson. Grabbing some floo powder from the mantelpiece he threw it into the fire then stepped in himself calling out, ‘Malfoy Manor’, he was gone in a puff of smoke.

_Dear Silv,_

_The meeting was almost predictable in its form. Dumbledore is denying all knowledge of the death of the Boy Who Lived. Instead he is touting the missing line, hoping most likely to save face and hide his own negligence._

_The search is to be covert, with scum keeping their ears close to the ground. I have to seek out my contacts and the mutt is to contact his brothers in fur._

_Lady Justice arrived and the meeting was called to a close, she is meeting with him alone regarding an on-going investigation. A close eye should be kept just in case._

_Ebony_


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not quite as quick as the last update, but quicker than some of mine. A Torchwood based chapter this one so Harry this time, but the next chapter will show his day with the Doctor.

Ianto sighed as he set up the boardroom for the meeting, he had a feeling that this was going to be a rather long day. He and Jack had arrived shortly at the Hub shortly after six that morning after dealing with a rift alert that had them running around Cardiff from about four in the morning, leaving Harry with the Doctor for the day. He had a feeling that his son was going to get into all sorts of mischief with the Doctor as his guardian for the day, but he had agreed to the man being his godfather, he really had no-one to blame but himself. He and Jack had agreed between them and made the Doctor promise that there were to be no trips in the TARDIS, so hopefully there wouldn’t be too much of a mess to clear when he got home.

Today was sure to be a long one, what with the new recruits arriving at nine, setting everyone up in their roles, getting them all into the Torchwood systems so they could access Mainframe, and the explanation of the Wizarding Wrold to those who were unaware of it. They also had to deal with Gwen, who would no doubt have many opinions about the changes in Torchwood and about Harry and how he would fit into their lives.

Gwen was no doubt going to be unhappy that they had chosen to expand without any input from her. Jack had chosen the new medical personnel, and as Toshiko had mentioned the fact they were a couple was bound to annoy Gwen, even if she did like Martha. Then there was James and Kateryn, that Kateryn would be aware of Torchwood whilst still in the police force and working as their liaison, was not going to sit well with Gwen. The other woman seemed to be of the belief that the police should be kept ignorant and just do as they told them, something that she had no doubt copied from Jack’s attitude towards the constabulary. It had however made things difficult for them though, as Gwen who had only been a beat cop had then thought it appropriate now that she was Torchwood to lord it over her former colleagues.

There was also the fact that with more people came more responsibility, Owen was in charge of the medical personnel, Toshiko was going to take charge over James and be the head of their technology and weapons department, small though it was, as although she didn’t possess as much knowledge of weapons as Jack or the innate skill that Suzie had she was still incredible with alien weoponary. As Administrator he was technically in charge of them all except Jack, not that Gwen had ever really noticed, except in the week that Jack had been away, but now he would have people working directly under him. Kateryn would report to him and so would Amanda and to a lesser extent Jodi. Everyone else would fall under Jack as field officers, Gwen included, and she was no doubt going to be ill impressed at the fact that she was just going to be one of the others, despite having been with Torchwood before their hire and that Owen and Tosh were rising above her. It wouldn’t really matter or occur to Gwen though, that Tosh and Owen were both well respected in their own fields and deserved to lead their respective sections within the Institute.

Owen and Toshiko had already arrived, the four of them having wanted to get an earlier start and be a prepared united front when Gwen arrived. They were hoping that they could deal with all her issues before the new recruits arrived as they didn’t want it to overshadow the morning or the newbies to have their first impression of Torchwood to be a squabbling group. He had just left the conference room for the main area of the Hub when the cog door rolled back and Gwen strolled in, pausing as she took in the changes that had occurred in the time that she had been away.

“Where’s Jack?” Gwen asked, not allowing for any pleasantries to be voiced.

“He was just heading to the conference room.” Ianto replied, noting that both Toshiko and Owen had snuck around them and made their way their silently, leaving Ianto to deal with Gwen, “Shall we join them?”

Gwen turned and walked straight to the conference room ignoring Ianto and leaving him to follow along behind her. As he was behind her he didn’t get to see her face at the sight of the conference room set up for fifteen people, but he did get to walk into her when she stopped abruptly right in front of him. He nudged her forward and she entered the room taking a seat next to Toshiko, Ianto having already snuck round her and taken his own seat next to Jack.

“What’s going on?” Gwen asked, looking at all the extra settings at the table, a copy of the Torchwood Handbook at every seat, including her own.  
“We’ve expanded.” Jack commented, “Your always saying that we need a life outside of Torchwood and I realised that you were right. I have hired another ten members of staff, eight full-time and two part-time, to help lessen the load a bit. With you getting married, and Ianto and I adopting my great grandson it made sense to hire more people so we aren’t stretched as thin as we have been.”

Gwen stared at him for a moment before speaking, “You and Ianto adopting the child, Jack he needs a normal life, a normal family. Rhys and I will look after him for you, you know we will take good care of him.”

“He has a normal family Gwen.” Ianto spoke up, not going to allow her to even think she had a chance of winning. “He will stay with Jack and I, we have already adopted him, and no-one will be taking him away from us it’s what his parent’s would want for him.”

Gwen snorted, “Jack’s granddaughter didn’t know about him, why would she want him to raise her son. Rhys and I have a much more stable relationship, we would be the better option, we know how to look after children, I’ve looked after my nephew.”

Deciding to get it over and done with and out of the bag Ianto spoke, “Jack and my relationship is plenty stable Gwen, in fact we are engaged, and neither of us is sleeping with other people behind our partner’s back. As for what Lillian and her husband wanted, I was on their list of guardians for their child and would have had custody of him since her death if it hadn’t been for the meddling old man who put Harry with his mother’s adopted sister.”

“You what? When did you get engaged? Where’s your ring?” Gwen shrieked, and although they never spoke, he could see the question in both Owen and Toshiko’s eyes as well.

Jack snorted, having not expecting Ianto to out them in such a way, but Gwen’s reaction was not unexpected. “Gwen. Do either Ianto or I look like a woman to you? Neither of us is wearing an engagement ring, and our wedding bands are still in the process of being made. When we got engaged is none of your business though and neither is how we raise our son.”

Gwen sat staring at him like someone had slapped her, the congratulations from Owen and Toshiko drowning out her snort of derision at the whole situation. Instead she decided to focus back on the child for now. “What do you mean you were on the list of guardians for the boy?”

“I mean that Lillian left a list of people that guardianship was to fall to if something happened to her or her husband. Harry’s original godfather is in prison, his godmother your sister is in hospital, next on the list is who I thought he was with, but it turns out as a werewolf he wasn’t allowed custody, then I was to be his next guardian.” Ianto replied, shocking Gwen into silence.

“How do you know about Alice?” Gwen questioned, not many people knew that she had a little sister who was stuck in hospital for life.

“I knew her, we went to school together, we were friends of a sort.” Ianto replied.

“You’re a wizard?” Gwen asked. “Why didn’t you tell us? Surely you could have been of more help with your magic.”

“We knew.” Jack replied, “We have known since Ianto was hired, and he uses his magic to help out as much as he can legally. Anyway, that is not important, what is important is that Harry is staying with us and that isn’t going to change.”

Jack then stood up as he noted the time, “I am going up to have a listen on the plass before I bring the new recruits down. I expect a united front, any issues that you feel need discussed can wait, and you can speak to me about them after this meeting, but we show Torchwood as a team.”

The rest nodded to him, watching as he left the room making his way to the invisible lift. Ianto smirked knowing that he was going to stand on that slab and listen in on the conversations that the new recruits were having. The only people that would notice him in Ianto’s opinion would be Martha, who had dealt with perception filters before and possibly James due to his work with alien technology. He quickly turned the screen on the wall on, searching for the cctv for the plass so that they could watch the newbies reaction.

They were scattered into three groups; Martha, Tom and Tara as one group, James, Kateryn and Amanda as another, and then off to one side were Jodi, Derek, Aiden and Lysander. Each group seemed to be in heavy discussion about something, and the small smirk on Martha’s face told Ianto that she knew that Jack was standing there listening to them all. She seemed to be the only one who had noticed him though as was shown when he stepped off the lift. In the defence of those who hadn’t noticed him, every one of them who owned a firearm had it trained on him as soon as they did. So they may not be the most aware of perception filters yet, but they did have good reaction times.

Ianto turned the monitor off after he watched Jack start to lead the newbies toward the tourist office. He looked around the rest of the team, noting that they each seemed a little nervous about the meeting ahead. Owen most likely due to the fact that there was going to be a lot more people than he was used to comfortably playing nice with. Toshiko because she hadn’t seen Tara Bartlett since before she was locked up in a UNIT prison, as for Gwen, Ianto was sure she was worried that they may not like her.

When the new recruits entered the room though they looked nothing but professional, nodding to each of them as they entered through the doorway, Jack filtering them in and down the room to seats. He took his place at the head of the table and indicated that everyone should take a seat before he began to talk.

“Introductions.” Jack began, “I am Captain Jack Harkness, Director of the Torchwood Institute.” He then looked at his team before speaking again. “Ianto Jones, Administrator and second in command. Toshiko Sato, Head of Weapons and Technology. Doctor Owen Harper, Chief Medical Officer. Gwen Cooper, Field Agent.” He indicated each member of his original team as he spoke, then turned and looked at the new recruits. “Introduce yourself, one at a time, name and roll.”

Martha, sat next to Owen, was the most at ease and comfortable with the situation having met all the team before decided to start. “Martha Jones, Doctor.” She looked to Tom on her right and the ball started rolling.

“Tom Milligan, Paediatrician.”

“Tara Bartlett, Pyschiatrist.”

“Amanda Jenkins, Admin assistant.”

“Lysander Malfoy, Field Agent.”

“Derek Brown, Field Agent.”

“Kateryn Parker, Police Liaison.”

“James Parker, Weapons expert.”

“Aiden Millar, Field Agent.”

“Jodi Scott, Field Agent/Intelligence Agent.”

“Right,” Jack spoke up, “Now that we are all acquainted. In front of you is a handbook, read it, memorise it, I’m told that there will be a test.” He shared a small smile with Ianto at that, while Owen snickered a bit under his breath, nothing that Tosh’s foot to his shin couldn’t cure.

“Okay, so Torchwood. I don’t need to go into a lot of detail, you’ve all worked for UNIT in some form or another, you’ll of heard of us. Basically, outside the government, beyond the police, arming the human race for the future.” Jack spoke. “We all know aliens exist, that while a big part of what we do isn’t the only concern.”

Jack looked around the table, before speaking again, “How many of you are aware of the magical world?”

Jack and Ianto both chuckled as a few heads snapped up at the words ‘magical world’ and the look of shock on the faces of the three new male field agents. It turned out that those three and Martha were the only ones who had any real knowledge of that world. Jack then turned to Ianto allowing him to take over the briefing for this part at least.

Ianto then spent the next hour explaining about the magical world, Torchwood’s role in the magical world, his role, and pretty much everything else that he could think of. Then they split the group up, sending Martha and Tom off with Owen, Amanda, Kateryn and James off with Toshiko and the field agents minus Jodi off with Gwen for a tour.

“So Miss Scott,” Jack began once it was just them and Ianto, “what was it that you uncovered that led to your suspension?”

“Experimental time travel, scavenged from Sontaran technology.” Jodi replied before going into further explanation of what she had found out. 

Once they had finished their meeting they all regrouped as one so that Ianto could give them a quick tour of archives before lunch. Ianto had been right about the day being an exceptionally long one, the rift had thankfully behaved for the rest of the day, but it was still late by time he and Jack had left the hub.

All in all though it had been a good day, the newbies were all logged into the system, they had been briefed on their role as Torchwood, their role in Torchwood, had Owen poke and prod at them and had been introduced to their long term residents Janet and Myfanwy.

Ianto just hoped that Harry had managed to keep the Doctor in line over the course of the day. He really didn’t want to have to go home and tidy up after the errant Time Lord. All he wanted to do when he got in was listen to how Harry’s day was before putting him to bed, then crawling into bed himself with Jack to sleep for as many hours as they could manage.


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so I'm back with an update. I looked at this fic earlier and realised that it really is going slowly this fic is now over four years old and just as it is getting older it is also growing, slowly I will admit. I want to thank everyone who has stuck with this fic over that time, I know that I am not the most reliable of posters and getting an update from me is sometimes like pulling teeth.
> 
> I also noted that between fanfiction{.}net and archiveofourown{.}org this fic has nearly 200 reviews/comments, over 300 have favourited/bookmarked it and over 600 have signed up for alerts on this fic. Thank you to all of you I read all the comments and try to reply to them all, they mean a lot to me, but I had never properly looked at the numbers until today - totally stunned.

When Harry awoke that morning the first thing that he did after he had assured himself that he was in his new room and not back in the cupboard under the stairs at his aunts, was to go and find his parents. His fathers had told him that as long as their door wasn't closed he could enter their room, and if the door was shut he could knock and wait for them to answer. It was open though, so he made his way into the room to see if they were awake. The bed was empty though, and it looked as though it had been left in a hurry as it hadn't been made. Harry took a moment to straighten the covers a bit before leaving the room in favour of the living room. His parents may still be at home, he knew that they had to go into work today, but it was still rather early, Uncle Vernon had never started work before nine am. He had always said that the important people only worked between nine and five and Harry was sure that his father's were important people.

They weren't in the living room though, so in a last attempt to find them he headed to the kitchen, only to find a sight more horrifying than Aunt Petunia's attempts at cooking. His Uncle Doctor was alone in the kitchen, surrounded by mess. There was no other word to describe it, it looked as though the man had emptied out all of the cupboards onto the counters and the floor. There were kitchen appliances and dishes everywhere, cereal boxes strewn over the floor. Harry shuddered at the thought of what his Tad would say if he saw the state of the kitchen and resolved to make his uncle put everything back where he had found it.

"What are you looking for?" Harry asked his godfather as he took a step into the room, careful not to stand on anything.

"Tea" The Doctor answered, "I can't seem to find it though."

Harry just stared at him for a second, all that carnage was over some tea. He walked over to the counter that held the kettle, and reached up towards the small canister that was labelled tea, pointing it out to his uncle.

He watched as the man seemed to blush a bit, then recovered himself, "What do you know, it is always in the last place you look."

Harry looked at him funny, surely the alien realised that once you found something you didn't keep looking for it. Of course you found it in the last place you looked for it. Harry really didn't understand adults sometimes, they were so confusing.

"Have Dad and Tad left for work?" Harry asked, he was sure that they had, but it was better to confirm it.

"Yep. Just me and you today. They should be back for dinner, or they were intending to be home for dinner at least." His uncle replied. "What do you want for breakfast?" He asked as he looked around at the mess that he had created, "Maybe we should go out for breakfast."

Harry just shook his head. "Nope. I'll have these." He said as he picked up a box of cornflakes from the floor, "And you can start putting everything back before you make your tea."

His uncle looked as though he was going to refuse so Harry glared at him, the glare that Aunt Petunia had always turned on him when he thought about not doing something, she had always seemed to know.

"Fine", the alien grumbled as he took the box of cereal, fixing Harry a bowl.

He then started moving about the kitchen throwing longing looks at the tea canister as he started to tidy the mess that he had made under Harry's supervision. When everything was away he made his way straight to the kettle putting it on and grabbing a cup to make his tea.

"So what do you want to do today?" The Doctor asked, looking Harry over where he sat at the table, still in pyjamas, nowhere near ready to do anything fun.

"I don't know. Maybe you could tell me about your travels with Dad and Aunt Rose." Harry asked.

The Doctor nodded, "We could. Or we could go to the park or the cinema. Or there is this great little amusement park I know on Pluto."

Harry just shrugged, "Tad says we're not to go travelling in the TARDIS."

The Doctor looked put out for a moment before replying, "Oh well. There is still plenty to do on Earth. Go and get dressed."

Harry went to his room, choosing clothes for the day and dressing quickly, just in case his godfather started to make a mess somewhere else. He didn't want to have to spend the day watching the man clear up the messes he made, he had been promised that he could visit with the TARDIS today and he wanted to talk to her about empathy and what being an empath actually meant for him. He knew that she was the one to talk to, she was the most knowledgeable of all the people or beings that he knew. His godfather was pretty smart as well as his aunts and uncles and his parents weren't too bad either, but the TARDIS she was in a league of her own. He had felt how old and knowledgeable she was when she had spoken to him about the books the other night. If she was willing to talk to him, he was willing to listen to everything she said and learn from her.

He found his godfather in the living room staring out the window. He walked into the room to catch the other man's attention, "Can we visit with the TARDIS?" he asked, knowing that it was better to get permission than just going off, he didn't want to get into trouble.

His godfather nodded and led the way to the cupboard where the TARDIS was parked. He opened the door then stepped back allowing Harry to enter first, following behind him and shutting the door securely. Harry walked straight up to the centre of the console and began lightly touching it as he reached out a bit with his mind to feel the TARDIS, almost shivering as she reached back.

It was weird to feel someone else touch his mind like this it was a hug to his mind, the TARDIS was soothing, a bit like a parent, but not quite. He tried to put his question to her mentally and felt the feelings of laughter and love flow from her in response, as well as an image. He watched the image and came to the realisation that the TARDIS wanted him to come to.

He nodded at the TARDIS, his godfather noticing and asking what the TARDIS was getting him to agree to. Harry just smiled before explaining that the TARDIS wanted him to call her grandma.

The look on his uncles' face was hilarious and it made him giggle, his grandma laughing along with him in his mind, the vibrations reverberating around the room allowing his uncle to feel how amused she was. It was nice, Harry thought, they were having a laugh, but they weren't making fun of his uncle like his cousin Dudley had done to him for a laugh, this was friendly, especially as his uncle joined in.

Harry spent most of the morning with his grandma, asking her and his uncle questions to hear what they each thought, their answers often so varied that he had trouble believing that they were answering the same question.

For lunch his uncle made him a sandwich and gave him a banana insisting that he should eat at least one banana a day as they were good for him. Harry just nodded, wondering if the obsession that his uncle seemed to have with bananas was an alien thing or not. Instead of a sandwich his uncle had four bananas for lunch before he insisted that they go out for the afternoon.

Once Harry had finished eating he said goodbye to his grandma and was bundled into his little coat, his scarf wrapped round his neck, and his hat and gloves in his pockets in case they were needed. His godfather then shut the door behind him then took Harry's hand and led them out into the street in search of a park.

An adventure his uncle called it, neither of them knew where the park was, so they would find it together, and anything they saw or encountered on the way was part of the adventure. Harry wanted to ask someone directions, but he was sure that it would ruin his uncles game so resolved to walking the streets until they came to a park. As it turned out there was one not too far away from where he lived and he and his uncle had taken the longest route to it possible.

They didn't stay at the park for too long, it was December after all. They stayed just long enough for Harry to have a shot on everything, and a few more goes on the things that he particularly enjoyed like the swings. To be honest he didn't know who had had more fun on the swings him or his godfather.

As they were about to leave the park his godfather got a phone call from his dad, his parents weren't going to make it home in time for dinner. Harry spoke to his dad on the phone, the other man sounded really sorry that they hadn't been at home when he woke up and that they wouldn't be there for dinner either. He did promise that they would be home in time to put him to bed and read him a story and that one of them would be at home with him in the morning.

Harry had told him that it was okay, he knew that they had to work and that he was having fun with his godfather. His dad told him that they loved him before asking to be given back to his godfather. Uncle Doctor spoke to his dad for a few more minutes before hanging up and turning to Harry.

"Okay, so it's just two for dinner. I know exactly what we should have." He said as he bent down and picked Harry up. "I'll carry you, we'll be quicker."

"Where are we going?" Harry asked, curious as to what his Uncle was going to feed him for dinner, hopefully not more bananas, while he liked them he wasn't as near as fond of them as his uncle.

"You'll see." His uncle replied. "I know that there is one just up here, I checked once I knew where you lived."

Harry looked at the man, it was obviously something that he enjoyed as he had looked into it. He supposed that he could go with it, you never know it may be something that he would enjoy. He didn't have a big list of dislikes anyway.

He looked around as they came up to a small shop that smelt of oil, he looked at his uncle who was sporting the biggest grin on his face that Harry had seen. He looked even more excited than he had about the bananas.

"Chips." he said with glee in his voice, "What would you like Harry?"

Harry looked at the menu on the wall, but he hadn't really had any of it before, so he had no idea what he would like. He told his uncle this and the man seemed thoughtful for a minute before he smiled.

He then turned to the woman behind the counter ordering a large fish and chips, a small chips, a steak pie and a king rib. Harry watched as everything was packaged into paper then put in a bag and his uncle paid for it.

Once they were back in the house his uncle explained that the small chips were for Harry as everyone had to like chips, and that he could try some of his uncle's fish, have some of the king rib and some of the pie to see what he liked. Figuring that this was okay, as it would allow him to get an idea of what he liked, Harry nodded and went to go to the kitchen to get plates but his uncle called him back.

Confused Harry asked why he wouldn't need a plate and his godfather explained the process of eating food from the paper, something that he had never seen before. When his aunt and uncle had fish and chips they always had it on a plate, the paper banished to the bin almost as soon as it arrived in the house.

The food was nice, the chips meeting both his and his godfather's approval, and Harry quickly claimed the steak pie for himself, not particularly liking either the king rib or the fish. Once he had finished eating his uncle said that it was time for a bath and then pyjamas on before he could watch some TV for a bit.

His bath showed Harry that his godfather was as big a kid if not more so than his dad. He ended up covered in more water than Harry and it was him that was having the bath. It just meant that while he changed into pyjamas his uncle had to clean the bathroom floor before going and changing himself. When his uncle reappeared in dry clothing Harry was already sat on the couch watching cartoons.

It wasn't long after they sat down together that the front door opened and his dad and tad came into the room. They each gave him a hug and a kiss before sitting down and asking him to tell them all about his day. He started at the very beginning, telling them all, much to his uncle's dismay. The look his Tad was throwing his godfather could kill, but the shocked looks on his parent's faces more than made up for it in his uncle's eyes when he told them about his talk with grandma.

Finally his parents decided that it was time for bed, and they had him tucked up in bed ready for a story. That night he chose to hear about one of his mum's adventures at Hogwarts trying to infiltrate the house of the lion. It didn't take too long before he was asleep dreaming of moving staircases red and gold and silver and green. It had been a long day after all, looking after his godfather was more exhausting than he had imagined.


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, sorry that this has taken so long. Hopefully the next chapter won't take so long to write. I have been trying to get back to this for ages, but finding inspiration to write at times is tough. It is sometimes much easier I find to start something completely new than delving back into something partially written. I am balancing work, college and university at the moment and having issues with a lack of sleep, so this has taken a bit of a back burner, never fear though this is one of my favoured bunnies and I will never abandon it, even if it does appear that I fall off the face of the web every few weeks.

Ianto was used to waking up early, four am starts were not unheard of for him, and running on no sleep at all happened more often than he would like. He was loathe to wake early though on his day off, not that there really was such a thing as a day off when you worked for Torchwood, but he wasn't on call except for an apocalypse and he was intending to work from home that day.

The small sobs of his young son however were enough to wake him, and he looked around his and Jack's room, blinking as he tried to wake up. Harry was stood framed in the doorway, sobbing but looking unsure as to whether he should enter the room. 

"Harry," Ianto called to him, the boy turning to him immediately, "come here."

The boy made his way over to the bed, Ianto sliding closer to Jack who had somehow remained asleep, and lifted the covers allowing the boy to climb into bed with them. Harry tucked himself into Ianto's side and seemed to calm a bit as Ianto started rubbing his back and trying to soothe him.

"What's wrong?" Ianto asked.

"The bearded man will take me away," Harry cried, "I don't want to go."

"No-one will be taking you from us, you are ours," Ianto replied, "our son, and you are staying right here with me and Jack."

“He said I had to go back to Aunt Petunia until time for school,” Harry muttered, “I don’t know who he is, but I don’t like him, he’s mean.”

Ianto did know who it was Harry was talking about, but what he didn’t know was how it had occurred. He himself had been dreaming about a confrontation with the Headmaster of Howarts who was insisting on Harry returning to the Dursley’s. It seemed as though Harry had managed to wander into or view his dream. It was something that he would have to look into, but first he had to calm his son.

“Shh baban, you are staying right here with me and your dad, okay. No-one is going to take you away from us,” Ianto soothed the child. The combined powers of Torchwood, Amelia Bones and the Oncoming Storm would ensure that Harry went nowhere he didn’t want to go.

Harry eventually calmed enough to fall asleep again enclosed in his Tad’s arms, Ianto running a soothing hand up and down his back. Once the small sobs had stopped completely Ianto felt Jack move at his side. 

“Is he asleep?” Jack questioned.

“Yeah,” Ianto murmured quietly, “I don’t know how, but he obviously witnessed my dream, we’ll have to figure out how, so we can stop it.”

“I’ll ask the Doctor if he has any ideas,” Jack replied, stretching out a bit behind Ianto, “I don’t want to get up, can’t I just stay here and Tosh and Owen can deal with the hub today.”

“No, you need to be there,” Ianto warned him, “If you don’t start getting the new hires organised in the way you want them you know that Gwen will try and take over, it’s in her nature.”

Jack pouted, but got out of bed anyway, trying not to wake Harry. He dressed almost silently in the dark, aware of Ianto’s eyes on him the whole time. “I’ll try to be home early.” He promised as he leaned over pressing a small kiss to Harry’s forehead and giving Ianto a quick kiss.

Ianto watched him leave the room before looking down at their son then at the clock, it was still early, he could have a few more hours of sleep before getting up. He pulled Harry closer and settled down to sleep, knowing that any extra sleep that he got was precious.

When Ianto awoke it was to find Harry sat next to him, staring intently at him. He sat up, realising that his son wasn't actually staring at him but more in his general direction and he appeared to be trying to meditate. Moving slowly so as not to startle him, he called out to him trying to bring his focus back into the room. It worked thankfully as Ianto was unsure really how to bring someone out of a meditation, he had meditated himself but he had never been responsible for anyone in a meditative trance before. He would have to speak with either Severus or the Doctor to find the safest ways to get someone out of a trance as he had no doubt that Harry would find himself getting lost in his meditations at some point.

“How do you feel now kidlit?" Ianto asked, using Jack's affectionate term for the boy.

"Fine Tad, can we get breakfast?" Harry replied, looking at him curiously, trying to figure out if he was going to get in trouble for asking.

"Go wash up then meet me in the kitchen." Ianto spoke, getting out of the bed himself and crossing to the wardrobe to pick clothes for the day. As he wasn't going into work he chose a more casual outfit, jeans and a shirt, knowing that he would no doubt end up at the park at some point during the day, it wouldn't do to keep Harry in the house all the time, a growing boy needed fresh air, and Ianto himself was quite partial to playing on the swings.

Ianto had cereal and orange juice set at the table for Harry when he came into the kitchen and watched as the boy took his seat.

"Is this okay?" Harry asked, gesturing to his clothes.

Ianto just chuckled, 'Trust Owen' he thought. "It's fine, you can wear whatever you like as long as you are warm enough." Harry was dressed in blue jeans, fluffy socks and a T-shirt with a dinosaur on it and the words 'Dance Dinosaur Dance'.

They had breakfast with very little conversation, but once the bowls were in the sink to be washed Ianto spoke up once more, "What would you like to do today?"

Harry looked at him, no doubt a little confused by the question, probably wondering why he was being asked, Ianto had no doubt that Petunia or her husband had never asked Harry what he thought of anything in his life. 

"We need to go and try and get you into a school for after Christmas, and I have a little bit of paperwork to do, but other than that the day is free, so what do you want to do today?" Ianto told the boy.

"Could we go to the park later?" Harry asked, looking at Ianto as he spoke, trying to make his request as clear as possible.

"As long as it isn't raining, I don't see why not." Ianto replied.

Harry smiled at him, looking thankful that his response hadn't been shot down. Ianto sighed internally, after Harry's initial breakdown he had seemed to be getting better, especially after the adoption, but now he seemed to be almost as nervous about asking anything as he had been when they had first taken him away from Petunia. He would talk to Jack about it, but maybe they should let Harry talk to Tara for a bit, she may be able to help him understand that he was not going to be treated the same way that Petunia had treated him.

"Why don't you go and get something to do out here for a while, or go and play in your room." Ianto suggested as they walked into the living room. "I have some paperwork to finish and then I need to start looking for a school for you to attend."

Harry nodded and left the room, he came back a few minutes later with his book and sat on the floor in front of the sofa, where Ianto had sat with his laptop. The paperwork Ianto was filling out was pretty basic, stuff that he could do in his sleep really, but still necessary for each of their new hires. He supposed that it was a good thing that Jack had taken on so many staff at once rather than staggering the hiring, it meant that he only had to sit down and do all this once, rather than doing it maybe three or four times for a few people. At least this way it would all be over and done with in one sitting. It didn't take too long to finish off, tying all their files into their own system and adding the files to the digital archives, he closed his access to the Torchwood server and began a search for schools within the Cardiff area with high security. His best bet was a smallish school out at Port Talbot really, it appeared to cater to the children of UNIT personnel mostly, but there were a few other children of high ranking people amongst the attendees as well. 

Deciding to discuss it with Jack later he signed out of the laptop completely, closing it and setting it on the table. He stood and went to his message box, intent on checking to see if there were any further messages from Severus. He had gotten his message about Amelia meeting with Dumbledore and had sent one back to keep an eye on the situation. There were no new messages which Ianto saw as a good thing, Severus would have gotten in touch with him immediately if he had come across any knowledge of trouble headed their way. Looking outside, it was still dry, but he was unsure for how much longer it would stay that way.

“Harry, go put your shoes and coat on and we’ll go to the park.” Ianto called to the child who was completely engrossed in the book on Empathy, a book that Ianto would have been sure was too complicated for him to understand, maybe something he gained from the adoption from Jack was helping him, or perhaps even his grandmother was explaining the book to him as he read it. He couldn’t believe it really, the TARDIS had taken to their child like a duck to water, and Harry to her. He and Jack had discussed it last night, and neither of them had any problem with the sentient spaceship adopting their child as family, but both were worried about the mischief they would get into together, especially if they added the Doctor to the mix.

Ianto took Harry to his car, deciding to go to one of the larger parks in Cardiff and let Harry play hopefully with some other children. He was hoping that if Harry started to make some friends the child would feel a bit more comfortable, he would have to speak with Amelia about Suzie and Harry meeting up often in order to help a friendship develop. Ianto knew that with his and Jack's job there would be a lot of shuffling Harry about at times, there would definitely be times that they both had to be at work, and that it wouldn't be safe for Harry to be with them. The end of the world invasions or catastrophes were not a suitable place for a child to be in the middle of. If Ianto had his way Harry would be safely protected elsewhere, far away from Torchwood and the dangers that followed them around. 

As they reached the park he had a few ground rules that he explained to Harry, he wanted the boy to know that he was allowed to play on anything that he wanted, but that he had to respect the other children in the playground. Ianto didn't want any fights, and the children had to share the equipment at the same time he didn't want Harry to allow anyone to bully him either. Staying close and not disappearing was also high up on the list, although Ianto had already hit him with a tracking charm so that he would be able to locate him if he disappeared. Harry seemed to accept the rules for what they were, guidelines to keep him safe.

When they entered the park Harry walked towards the swings, Ianto following along in his wake, taking the initiative to help the boy up and then begin to push him when he was seated properly. They spent a while with Ianto pushing Harry on the swings before he took the swing next to him and let Harry swing on his own, trying to increase his speed using only his legs. Ianto took the chance just to enjoy swinging back and forth lazily, watching the smile grow and on Harry's face as he moved back and forth. It was an amazing sight, after all it had only really been a few days since they had taken the child from Petunia.

Harry jumped down from the swing after he had slowed almost to a stop and looked to Ianto before asking if he could go and play on the chute. Ianto let him know that it was fine before vacating his own swing, telling Harry that he would be over by the benches. He made his way to the benches intending to take the time that Harry was playing to contact Jack and see if they could make some arrangements for some of the things that had come to mind. He didn't get the chance though ass as soon as he sat down he was joined by a rather perky young woman.

"Hi, I'm Jess, which ones yours?" She asked, looking around at the children playing, "That's my Blake there." She said as she pointed towards a boy playing in the middle of the group of children on the roundabout. "Maybe we could get the kids together for a play date some time."

Ianto groaned to himself silently, the sooner the rings that Jack was having made for them were reading ready the better, if only so that he could scare off the women who saw the lack of ring on his finger as a sign that he was single and available for them to sink their claws into.

“Ianto", he replied. "That's my son there, Harry." Before he could say anything else his phone rang. He dug it out of his pocket, smiling when he saw that it was Jack calling and hoped that it wasn't the end of the world. "Sorry I have to take this, it's my partner." He told the woman. "Hi Jack."

Ianto listened to the other man, luckily the world hadn't decided to end on his day off, if anything there was nothing really for them to do, other than paperwork, their own projects and helping the new recruits settle. Jack was calling to check in and hopefully relieve his boredom.

“We’re at the park just now.” Ianto told Jack when he asked, “I was thinking that we might pick up lunch for everyone and bring it in with us. Harry can spend some time with Tosh at her computer and we can discuss a few ideas that I have had.”

Harry had wandered over while Ianto was talking, “Yeah, we’ll be there soon, love you too.”

Hanging up he took Harry’s hand, turning to the woman he made his apologies, escaping with Harry before she could try to get his number or something. He explained to Harry that they were going to pick up some lunch and head to the hub, where he could spend some time with Tosh, who would show him how to use the computers.

Harry seemed okay with that idea, something that Ianto was glad of as he really didn’t want him with him when he broached the subject of him talking about his past with Jack. He wanted to get his partners opinion before they spoke to Harry about it. He also wanted Jack’s opinion on the school and he had also had an idea about a nanny for Harry, but that was something that he definitely had to run by Jack. It wouldn’t do for him to get a house elf to act as Harry’s nanny and just let Jack stumble upon the creature, it was a decision they would have to both agree with.


	16. Chapter 16

Jack looked down into the hub from his office, having thoroughly given up on doing his paperwork, hopefully he could get Ianto to finish it for him. He left his office and headed down to wander amongst his team, to see what they were all working on and to see how the new recruits were fitting in. The period of low rift activity that Toshiko had predicted seemed to be holding and there wasn't really much to being out in the field so the team were all hub bound for the time being. It was helpful in a way as it gave the new recruits an adjustment period to settle in. Tom and Martha were in the autopsy bay with Owen, Martha and Tom giving Tom his first lesson on autopsying aliens. James seemed to be immersed in working out a weapon that Ianto had left for him to study, they had been trying to figure out what it did for a while. Neither Tara nor Kateryn were in the hub that day, and Amanda was up in the tourist office, Gwen was sat at her desk and seemed to be fighting the same battle that he had been fighting; paperwork.

“Where are the others?” Jack asked Toshiko as he looked over her shoulder at the information on her screen, she appeared to be buying alien technology on ebay again.

“Down in the shooting range,” Toshiko replied, “Jack you should see some of this guys listings, I’m not sure whether to bid for anything and leave a paper trail, or if we should just go in and remove the things he has.”

Jack looked at the screen, Toshiko had pulled up the main listings the person had up for auction. Jack looked down the list quickly, “Nothing there is really dangerous, bid for what you think, and we’ll head out to meet this person in the next few days, see what else they have.”

Toshiko nodded before turning back to the computer, completely ignoring Jack as he continued to wander around checking up on what everyone else was up to. He knew that Ianto and Harry would be there soon, and he would get a break then, but he couldn't face another minute of doing his paperwork, so he was trying to keep himself occupied in other ways.

As the cog door began to roll back he pressed his finger to his earpiece, connecting to the rest of the team, telling them that Ianto had brought lunch, and that they should all meet in the conference room if they wanted to eat and meet his and Ianto's kid. He had been waiting for this meeting for the whole morning really, he had been hoping to invite Ianto and Harry in at some point if the world didn't go mad, and he wanted to see how each of the team who hadn't met Harry yet reacted to him; Gwen's reaction would be rather important as well. He knew that she wasn't going to give up on her and Rhys raising his child, not that either he or Ianto would allow it, but she was still going to push for it. She knew that they had adopted him, but she knew nothing of the blood adoption. As far as the world would know, the wizarding world at least, either he or Ianto had carried Harry and had given birth to him. Gwen would get quite the shock when she saw Harry, a perfect mix of him and Ianto.

"Daddy," Harry called out when he spotted him, rushing towards him for a hug, babbling away about having gone to the park and played on the swings. Jack smiled at him, watching the expression of happiness on his sons face as he told him about his day so far.

He spotted Ianto heading towards the kitchenette, having already passed off the bags of food to Toshiko who was on her way to the boardroom already. Owen trailing not far behind her, trying to see what was in the bags and figure out what Ianto had bought. Jack began to follow them after lifting Harry onto his back, carrying him up to the boardroom, getting a laugh from Martha as Harry began to play with his hair.

Jack placed Harry on the ground when they got there, and was about to sort a place at the table for him, but he was off before he got a chance to lead him to a seat. Looking to see where he had run off to he wasn't surprised to see him talking to Martha. Jack just shrugged when Martha looked at him before pulling Harry up to sit on her lap. Jack could tell that Gwen was shocked by these actions as Martha then tuned out the rest of the team to listen to Harry talk about his day with his godfather yesterday, and how messy and childlike he was. Martha was still laughing when Ianto came in with the coffee, the rest of the team who had been in the range coming in behind him.

Once everyone had gathered and they had began to choose from the selection of sandwiches and salads that Ianto had brought with him, Jack introduced Harry to everyone. As those around the table looked to Harry the exuberant little boy was gone, hiding himself against Martha, a shy child blinked at the people in the room that he didn’t know. 

Surprisingly it was Owen that spoke up for him, “Oi, stop staring at him, you are freaking him out. You alright kiddo, no-one’s gonna hurt you.”

The others seemed to look abashed, but Gwen didn’t seem to take the hint. “Oh pet, of course no-one is going to hurt you.” She rounded the table, “I’m Gwen, I was thinking you could come and stay with me for a while.”

“No!” Harry protested, clinging more to Martha as he spoke, “I’m staying with daddy and tad.”

Gwen was about to speak again when Owen pulled her away, Ianto taking Harry from Martha as Jack told Gwen to go and wait for him in his office. Jack and Ianto calmed Harry down, the thought that someone was going to take him away having scared him, as well as all the different emotions in the room overwhelming him. Once he seemed to have calmed down a bit he Ianto passed him back over to Martha, asking her and Tom to get him something that would help him relax a bit, perhaps some warm milk, and to keep him distracted for a while.

Once they had left the room Jack and Ianto explained to those who didn’t know about Harry’s history and how he had come to be with them, shocking those who had previously known about the wizarding world and Harry Potter. The team agreed however to keep Harry’s previous identity a secret, and had promised to be a bit more subtle in their stares if they must stare at him. 

“He should be taught to defend himself.” Lysander spoke, “He’ll need to know before he goes to Hogwarts, but the sooner the better, especially in our line of work.”

Ianto nodded, knowing that it was true. He looked to Jack before looking at the rest of the team who all looked eager to help with the training. "We'll discuss it, we have a lot of other things to figure out in regards to his education, but it is something that we will definitely look at.”

The team all offered up areas in which they would be willing to help Harry learn, before they left the room leaving Jack and Ianto alone.

"You wanted to speak to me about a few things I can tell." Jack spoke, wondering what his partner needed to discuss with him.

"I've found a school for Harry, it is secure and is often the place that UNIT operatives send their kids. It’s quite small, and it’s out at Port Talbot, but I think it will work for us in terms of security. I wanted to speak to you before setting up a meeting with them, I want him to be back in a proper school once the Christmas holidays are over.” Ianto told him, explaining all that he had read about the school.

“Try and set up a meeting for tomorrow, we can take Harry with us, and go and visit the school. We’ll leave Owen and Tosh in charge.” Jack replied, “What else? There is definitely more that you have got running around in your head.”

“Other than learning to block others emotions, I think Harry needs to talk about his, I was thinking maybe we should let him sit with Tara, she probably has more experience with that sort of thing than either of us.” Ianto told him.

“I was going to bring that up.” Jack agreed, “Neither of us are really the best people when it comes to talking about things that bother us, emotions or thoughts, and while we can listen to him, Tara might have a better way to help him. I’ll speak to her when she is next here.”

Ianto nodded, “We need a nanny. If we both need to be here I don’t really want Harry to be in the hub, it could put him in all sorts of danger. We need someone who can be at home for him at all times and can pick him up and take him to school if we need them to. I was thinking of going to the goblins and seeing about purchasing a house elf. If we bond them to us then they would be loyal to us, they can take on a human appearance with a glamour, so dealing with anything in public would be no problem, we’d just need to create them an identity, something Toshiko could do easily.”

They spoke about the subject for a while, Jack asking all sorts of questions before agreeing with him. It was decided that Ianto would go that afternoon to the goblins to see about an elf, as well as checking on the progress of the investigation that was going on into Harry’s disappearance in the magical world. Lastly they spoke about what they were going to do about Gwen and her attempts to raise Harry. In the end Ianto left after saying goodbye to Harry and left Jack to deal with Gwen alone.

Jack sighed to himself before heading up to his office, after he had checked on Harry, this was not going to be an easy conversation. He had to convince Gwen that she was not going to be raising his child, he couldn’t understand why she was pushing the issue so much in the first place. He entered his office, looking at Gwen sat in front of his desk, this was going to be a long conversation, he just knew it. He was glad that Harry was otherwise occupied, Martha and Tom having helped him calm down, his link with Martha through the godparent bonding having helped him to centre himself on her a bit. He was now sat with Toshiko, and she was showing him how to use a couple of programmes that she had placed onto a laptop for him to use. He sat down opposite Gwen, not saying anything, just waiting. He didn’t have to wait long, he had been sat less than a minute before she started to speak or rather rant at him, he groaned internally, why hadn’t he gone to Gringotts and left Ianto to deal with Gwen.


	17. Chapter 17

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Eek! It's been four months since I last updated this, I'm really bad at this regular update thing, and this is the shortest chapter to date I think. After this weekend I have two weeks holiday before I have to go back to work and college, uni doesn't start till a fortnight after that; hopefully I should get at least another chapter out. 
> 
> Next chapter - Jack's talk with Gwen, Harry explores Torchwood a bit, Dinner at the Harkness-Jones.

Ianto apparated to the Leaky Cauldron, transfiguring his jacket into a travelling cloak on arrival; it wouldn’t do for him to stroll through Diagon Alley in a muggle suit, no matter how high quality it was, and entering the pub quickly, so that he didn't attract the attention of any muggles. The pub was as dingy as he remembered and his eyes took a moment to readjust to the darkness of the pub. He nodded to Tom as he made his way towards the door that would lead him into the courtyard to Diagon Alley. Once in the alley he made his way straight towards Gringotts, not wanting to keep the goblins waiting; time was money after all. He had phoned and made an appointment with Ragnok before leaving the hub, and he didn't want to be late, it wouldn't leave him or Torchwood in good standing with the goblins.

When he announced himself to a teller at one of the desks he was immediately led away through the corridors of the bank directly to Ragnok's office, their meeting completely private from anyone who may be trying to listen in. They had quite a few sensitive things to discuss after all, not just Harry, but a few bits of business related to Torchwood as well. Once a few quick pleasantries had been exchanged they quickly got to business, coming first to the ward analysis on number 4 Privet Drive. 

While there had been wards on the property, Severus wouldn't have noticed them going off in the Headmaster's office if there hadn't been, and Dumbledore wouldn't have known they had failed, they were not the wards that the Headmaster claimed were in place. The headmaster had insisted that Harry was safely behind intricate blood wards based on his mother’s blood and sacrifice, and her love and that of his family. No such wards had existed on the property, there were some wards that kept dark creatures away, and alert wards that would alert the Headmaster to a magical presence within the wards, that was the device that Severus had tampered with to erase the knowledge of both Ianto and his own visit to the Dursley home. The wards were tied to Harry's blood and Petunia's and would only alert Dumbledore in the case of a magical entering the property, or collapse if Harry no longer considered the place home, or in the event of Harry's death.

Ianto had read the ward schematic that the goblins had produced, wondering how Amelia would use this to her advantage against Dumbledore, he knew she would, anything that could make their case stronger would be used. The Potter wills came next, the information that they contained shocking Ianto to the core, Black was innocent of betraying the Potters, and Dumbledore was aware of it. He was shocked at the lengths the Headmaster was obviously willing to go to 'keep Harry safe' as he had insisted he was doing when he sealed the Potter wills. He had insisted that it was for the best so that no-one knew where Harry was living, when really it was so that Harry wasn't sent to any of the guardians listed for him in the will. Sirius would not be in Azkaban for the betrayal of the Potters, his part in Petigrew's death would have been seen as an auror bringing a criminal to justice, the muggles collateral damage as much as Ianto hated the idea. He gave instructions to make sure that Amelia got copies of the wills so that she could begin to make a start on Black's case as well as building evidence for Harry's.

They then moved onto Torchwood business, going over the details of a few different things that had come through the rift that would be of interest to the goblin nation; it was amazing the amount of goblin items that seemed to travel through the rift, and arranging a trade of those items for the complete warding of a couple of location. Once the contracts had been dealt with sufficiently Ianto broached his last subject to discuss with the goblins, was securing the contract of a house elf suitable to be Harry’s nanny and the purchase of a goblin glamour band that would allow the elf to look completely human for interactions in the muggle world.

The goblins had such an extensive network; looking after the wealth of the entire wizarding populace meant that they knew or could call upon nearly everyone. Securing an elf that met their requirements wasn’t difficult, so when Ianto left the bank it was in the company of a house elf called Tally who was already wearing a goblin glamour band that made her look like a petite brunette with brown eyes. She looked non-descript enough that it would be easy for her to blend in amongst the other residents of Cardiff, once Toshiko had created her an identity Ianto was sure that even UNIT wouldn’t be able to tell that she hadn’t been a Cardiff resident her whole life.

Flourish and Blotts was Ianto’s first stop when he left the bank, he had an extensive list of books that he wanted to pick up, but the bookstore was unable to help him with some of the more specific things he wanted. He got quite a few books for Harry, aimed at young pureblood children to help them learn to read and learn about the magical world, he also picked up a couple of more introductory texts aimed towards muggleborn children entering the world at the age of eleven, knowing that Toshiko and Owen would probably like a look at them. A few books one healing also went into his floating basket, it would be useful for Owen to know the capabilities of magical healing and the effects it has on the body. He had hoped to find books on Occlumency and Empathy, but they seemed to be topics that were a bit more obscure than what was found on the shelves of such a general bookstore. A quick trip down Knocturn Alley to Tomes would hopefully provide him with the books he was looking for.

With the hood of his travelling cloak covering his head and Tally walking at his side, covered in a similar conjured cloak, Ianto ventured into Knocturn Alley. He tried to be as inconspicuous as possible as he made his way to the bookstore, taking note of any strangeness in the alley; especially the increased auror presence. They were searching for Harry, or rather for any unsavoury characters that may have taken him, or who may know where he is. Ianto ducked into the bookstore before any of the aurors caught sight of him, he had recognised a few of his contemporaries from Hogwarts and didn’t want to be stuck with them for any length of time, being questioned about Harry or otherwise.  
Tomes was dimly lit and completely dust covered, just as he remembered, inhaling the scent of dust and old books he made his way further into the stacks. He could hear Tally muttering behind him, probably trying to curb the urge to dust the shop from top to bottom. Finding the one small shelf dedicated to the mind arts Ianto was surprised to find someone else already there a book on Occlumency in hand, especially someone that he knew. Seeing Severus Snape in a bookstore was not an oddity, it was less frequent than the apothecary, but it was still a common enough occurrence that most people would overlook it. That he was in the same store as Ianto at this time, holding a book he wanted, one that Ianto was sure he already owned, was suspicious to say the least.

“You’ll want this one.” Severus said, placing the book in his hand, opening the front cover slightly so that Ianto could see a piece of parchment slipped inside the book.

Ianto raised an eyebrow at the man, what he was doing in Knocturn Alley at this time of the day Ianto had no idea, surely the man should be teaching there were still a few days left of the Hogwarts term.

“The Headmaster felt it would be better to have someone cover my classes while I feel out some of my contacts and scout the alley for any sign of the boy.” Severus answered the unasked question before nodding to the book, “A contact is intent on releasing that to the Prophet tomorrow, it could be useful to host dinner this evening to discuss it.”

“6pm.” Ianto replied, believing that Severus wouldn’t want them to meet up if it wasn’t important.

The man nodded and swept out of the bookstore leaving Ianto to look around and gather the books he wanted before paying for them and leaving the store. He nodded once to Tally indicating that they were leaving once they reached the apparition point and apparated back to the flat, the house elf following the feel of his magic and the bond between them arriving seconds later. He wrote a quick message inviting Amelia and Susan to dinner and sent it off with Tally and then pulled the parchment from the book.

Headmaster Hiding our Hero, or Hiding a Secret  
Special Correspondent  
Rita Skeeter

There has been much discussion in the last few years about where our saviour Harry Potter was placed after his parents death. Headmaster Dumbledore has continued to insist for the last few years that the boy hero is safe in a location where he can enjoy his childhood out of the limelight.

This reporter has uncovered some information that calls the Supreme Mugwump’s statements into question. It appears that Harry Potter has disappeared from the safe location that the Headmaster secreted him away to. The supposed safe location obviously wasn’t if the boy is missing, but the Headmaster insists that this was the best place for the child.

A question I ask my readers is this, today is Wednesday and the poor child apparently disappeared on Sunday, why is it only now that we are aware of this? If it wasn’t for sources that this reporter will protect the wizarding world would still be unaware. Is the Headmaster trying to sweep this under the rug? Where is little Harry and what is being done to find him?

The Headmaster was unavailable to comment. Hopefully he is busy looking for our saviour. We here at the Daily Prophet wish for the child’s safe return, and placement with a proper wizarding family to keep him safe.

Ianto chuckled as he read the article that was obviously the work of Lucius Malfoy whispering in Skeeter’s ear, this could work to their advantage. He understood perfectly now why Severus thought they should meet to discuss things, it would be good to find out where all the players in the game were falling and discuss a plan of action. He quickly placed the books he had bought away before instructing Tally in regards to dinner that evening, leaving everything in the house elf’s capable hands. He then apparated back to the hub, he had a few things to do before he could take Harry home for the evening, and he had to let Jack know that they’d be having guests that evening.


	18. Chapter 18

Staring across his desk at Gwen as she ranted at him Jack wondered if she was taking the time to breathe as she spoke. He was no longer listening to a word she was saying, so really she was wasting her energy, it had gone past the stage of him hanging on her every word and caving to her wishes. He and Ianto weren’t going to give up Harry to her and Rhys, it seemed inconceivable to him that he would even think it.

“Enough Gwen.” Jack interrupted her, “Harry is mine and Ianto’s child, he is ours in every way and he will be staying with us. You and Rhys will have your own children in the future I’m sure, but Harry is not it. I don’t know why you have been pushing the idea so much since you first found out about him, but it ends now; you’re not only annoying me and Ianto, but scaring Harry.”

“Jack,” Gwen began, “Don’t you see that me and Rhys would be better parents for him, he’d have a stable normal home with two parents.”

“Harry has a normal home with two parents Gwen, me and Ianto, and he is happy there; he is our son and he is staying with us.” Jack growled at her.

“Who is going to look after him when we are all out on rift calls and you and Ianto are chasing weevils at two in the morning. It won’t work Jack, let me and Rhys have him, Rhys will be there to look after him properly.” Gwen tried to convince Jack, but it didn’t seem to be working.

“His nanny will be there for him if we all get called in.” Jack responded, “This discussion is over Gwen, I don’t want you to bring it up again, especially not in front of Harry. For your actions in front of the team I have no choice but to reprimand you; you have weevil duty for the next week.”

Jack could see that she was about to begin to argue with her punishment and decided to cut her off before she could start another tirade. “That’s all Gwen. Get back to work, I know you have paperwork that needs to be done before you finish for the day.”

Gwen stormed out of the office and Jack took a moment to enjoy the peace and quiet without her in there. He walked to the doorway and watched her walk back to her desk in a strop. Harry was still sat with Toshiko and looked over at Gwen warily before turning back to whatever it was that they were doing on the computer. Deciding that Harry was safe enough just now with Toshiko as his protector he intended to go back to his desk and work his way through some of the paperwork that appeared to have grown on his desk in the last couple of days; Ianto might reward him if he got through the majority of it. Almost as soon as he turned away from his office door the sound of Tosh’s rift predictor drew Jack down into the main hub.

“What have we got Tosh?” Jack asked staring at the program trying to see if he could read it. It was all gibberish to him though, Toshiko and Ianto seemed to be the only two that understood the program at its base level; why Toshiko was running it in code mode as he and Owen referred to it he didn’t know, unless she was making more modifications.

“Rift spike out in Pontypridd, it’s quite a large spike, I don’t know what came through. I’m sending coordinates to your wrist strap.” Toshiko spoke, her eyes never turning away from the computer, her eyes fixed on the code rapidly flying over the screen.

“Owen, Derek, Lysander, Aiden with me. Toshiko you’re in charge, Martha look after the kidlit.” Jack barked out orders, leaning down as he did so to hug Harry, “I’ll be back soon kiddo.”

Harry nodded, but moved closer to Toshiko when Jack started to leave. He had obviously seen Gwen stand to try and join the others. Jack noticed her as well, turning back over his shoulder Jack called out to her, “Gwen I want that paperwork done by time I get back.”

Gwen huffed and moved back to her desk, glaring at everyone around her. James just snorted at her attitude and started setting up his station so that he was ready if the team brought back a weapon for him to work with. He noticed that the others all seemed to set about tasks of their own without Toshiko having to instruct them. Amanda was up in the tourist office advising a couple of people about Cardiff Castle, but the rest of the team in the hub just got on with their work, except Gwen of course.

As soon as Jack left Martha took Harry by the hand and led him up to Jack’s office, obviously trying to get him out of the way of any impending storm. Tom ducked back down into the Doctor’s area, insisting he was getting things ready in case anyone came back injured, and Jodi rushed out of the main hub area, muttering about getting some cells ready just in case. Toshiko’s fingers were flying across her keyboard as she typed she was bringing up any program that may help her direct the team when they got to the rift spike.

Toshiko was helping direct the team once they had arrived when she heard the cog door, she carried on with her work, knowing that it would be either Ianto or Amanda. The click of Amanda’s kitten heels on the hub floor as she wandered towards the kitchenette practically promised her coffee. She was right, not even five minutes later the young woman was dropping of cups of coffee to them all. The coffee was nowhere near as good as Ianto’s, but Toshiko was sure that with the right training the young woman’s coffee would be almost as good; what they were drinking at the moment definitely came second in the rankings of all the coffee she had drunk.

“Amanda,” Gwen called out as the young woman started making her way back to the kitchenette to get rid of the tray she was carrying. “I need you to do these files here.”

Three things happened at once, Amanda began to protest, Toshiko turned to glare at Gwen and was about to speak when Ianto appeared at her shoulder having apparated into the hub. He took one look around the hub before telling Amanda that she was fine to get on with her duties and touching Toshiko’s shoulder letting her know that he’d deal with things.

“Gwen, it’s your paperwork, you need to do it. Amanda cannot fill in your reports for you, she wasn’t there.” Ianto told her before turning and heading towards Jack’s office where he had seen Martha and Harry watching him.

Pushing open the door he was almost knocked over by the little boy, grabbing him in a hug. He was then pulled into the office and pushed into Jack’s chair, Harry then climbing up to sit in his lap. Ianto shot a look in Martha’s direction, he wasn’t sure what to think, was this normal for a child or not. 

Martha just smiled at him, chuckling a bit. “He’s missed you. Jack’s out with a team in Pontypridd, they should be back soon.”

“I am going to take Harry home with me now, we can get started on dinner. Can you get Jack to call me as soon as he is back, there are a few things we need to discuss.” Ianto told her, standing with Harry in his arms as he did, moving the boy to balance him on his hip. “There are a few things that have come up in the Magical world that we need to plan around, you and Tom are welcome to join us for dinner.”

Martha nodded, opening the door to the office and letting Ianto leave first before following him down into the main hub. Ianto stopped off at Toshiko’s desk leaving her a pile of parchment and a photograph and asking her to create a full identity for him for Harry’s new nanny. He then left the hub through the cog door, Harry waving at them over his shoulder.

On the drive back home Ianto explained what he and Jack had decided that day, telling him about how Tally would be at home to look after him when neither Jack or Ianto were able to be there, and how he had to listen to what Tally told him and behave for her. Harry had agreed easily, Ianto noticed that he seemed to be unwilling to even attempt to step out of line, it was something they would need to discuss with Tara.

Tally was at the door to meet them when they got home and Ianto introduced Harry to her, then keyed him to her goblin glamour band so that he was able to see through the illusion that the muggles would see. Between him and Tally they explained what a house elf was and their roles in a magical house. When Jack phoned Ianto sent Harry to his room to play while he explained the situation to his partner, explaining about dinner that evening, and telling the man to invite Owen to join them. Ianto had already left a message for Toshiko to join them in the pile of parchments about Tally’s identity.

Ianto then joined Tally in the kitchen, helping with dinner for that evening, giving the elf orders and explaining exactly what her duties would be while she worked for him and Jack. Harry was her number one priority, Jack and Ianto, and the house came after him. Tally understood her role and by the time Jack arrived home with Owen dinner was almost ready to go on the table and Ianto felt as though Tally had been one of the family for years. 

Dinner was a large affair, in which the group all spent some time getting to know each other, it was nice Ianto thought that both his lives were coming together like this; his main Torchwood family and the only people he still kept any sort of contact with from his time at Hogwarts. Once the meal was over Tom, the helpful man that he was, took Harry and Susan through to Harry’s room to play and to keep them occupied while the rest of the adults figured out what to do about the Wizarding world and the search for Harry that was going on.

“Dumbledore is still not admitting anything about Harry being dead, that his monitoring devices are no longer working.” Severus told them, looking towards Amelia as he spoke. “Did he say anything to you that made you think he knew that Harry Potter was dead?”

“No.” Amelia replied, “He was very tight-lipped about all his responses to my questions, and very interested in using the full resources of the Aurors to find the child. Whether that is because he doesn’t want to lose face with the wizarding community about the situation in which he left the boy, or because he suspects foul play I don’t know.”

“What sort of reaction can we expect from the Headmaster about the article?” Jack asked, looking at the magical in the room, hoping for some insight as to how the old wizard would respond.

“And from the wizarding public, how will they react?” Toshiko added before anyone could speak.

“The public are sheep.” Severus snarked, “There will be those that will start looking for the child of course, but the majority of them will wait to find the strongest player in the game and follow them. The Headmaster, the Minister, and Amelia as the Head of the Department of Law Enforcement will be looked to for answers. Fudge is a fool, you know that, Dumbledore will need to do a lot of work to restore his reputation quickly to work this to his advantage, Amelia is in the strongest position at the moment, it just depends on what she does now.”

Those sat around the table looked to the woman in question to see if she had any ideas on how they could resolve the situation in their favour. None of them wanted the wizarding world out searching for Harry, and they wanted Dumbledore to face the consequences of his actions regarding Harry’s childhood.

“My main thoughts all centred on using the goblins, I can’t just declare Harry dead, but I can’t waste Auror resources looking for him, but not to do so would result in outrage from the public. If Gringotts declare Harry Potter dead I can then set up an investigation into how it happened, one that I would conduct myself.” Amelia announced. “I just need your approval and the cooperation of the goblins. I will then have the chance to look into the Dursley’s and Dumbledore’s actions.”

“Do you think Lucius will help us keep Dumbledore busy?” Ianto asked Severus, “Lily was always one of his favourites and Harry is a magical child, he won’t be happy with Dumbledore’s placing him with muggles in the first place.”

“I’ll speak with him. I think we need to keep you out of things entirely, it would be too suspicious if you started to pop up now, people might start connecting things.” Severus answered, mentally making plans to visit Malfoy Manor.

Jack looked around the table seemingly collecting himself. “Right, if Amelia contacts the goblins and sets the ball rolling, and Severus keeps an eye on Dumbledore, we will keep out of the way as much as possible. Toshiko I want you on intelligence, anything you can find on Dumbledore in either world would be appreciated. Ianto is there any chance we would be able to get that reporter digging into Dumbledore’s past, I’ve found that reporters are good at finding buried skeletons.”

“I’ll send in an anonymous message to her through the goblins.” Ianto told him, writing lists in his mind of all the things that he had to do.

Their guests didn’t stay much longer once their impromptu planning session ended, each leaving for their own homes, or the homes of friends in Severus’ case. Tally popped back into the kitchen and began to clear all the dishes before Ianto could even attempt to start cleaning up, something that he was grateful for. The next couple of days would no doubt be long ones, and any opportunity he had to take some time to relax was appreciated.

After making sure that Harry was settled for the night he and Jack retired to their bedroom for the night. Although he was tired sleep did not come quickly for Ianto, and he and Jack spent a while discussing their plans quietly in the hopes that they wouldn’t wake their child in the next room. It was both their hopes that once they had settled the issue of Harry’s schooling and the drama in the Wizarding world died down that they would all settle into a routine; or as much of a routine as anyone could have when they worked for Torchwood.


	19. Chapter 19

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it has taken so long :( Real life took over and then I got hooked writing NCIS fic.

Albus Dumbledore was having a terrible day, one that had started earlier that week, or so it had seemed to him. It felt as if the days were running continuously into one another without him managing to break them apart, the problems from one day were running into the next and multiplying with no sign of diminishing in any way. It had all started when the ward monitors in his office linked to Harry Potter started causing a racket. He knew what it meant, the child was dead, but he couldn’t admit that to anyone or he himself would be implicated in the death.

Instead he had contacted the Department of Magical Law Enforcement alerting them to the fact that the child was missing and starting a search for him. Missing was acceptable, nowhere near as dangerous to him as dead. With the boy missing he could die while out on his own, dead just meant that he had somehow managed to die in the environment that Albus had hidden him in for his safety. It would be a nail in his own coffin, one that he was prepared to allow. He wondered how the muggles had manage to kill the child, they were meant to keep him subservient so that he could mould him into the saviour that he wanted when it was time for him to return to the wizarding world.

He wondered how much of a mistake it had been to allow the boy to remain there, he supposed it was catastrophic now that the boy was dead, but if things had just gone to plan the boy would have been fine. He may have had a hard childhood, but he would come through it well enough, the situation wasn’t as bad as people had made it out to be, or at least he hadn’t thought so. Maybe he should have done a thorough investigation of the situation before he had erased the memories of the police officers that had been dealing with the reported case of abuse.

The major problem that he was now dealing with was how to manage the situation to his advantage, he didn’t want any of his actions to be called into light and he was sure that if there was a thorough investigation they would be. He had to keep the focus on the search for the child, rather than the reasons how or why he had disappeared, he wondered how long he could keep the search going for. If he could manage to have the search take years until the Hogwarts letter that should be sent didn’t appear he could then announce the grave news that as there is no letter for the child whose name had been down from birth that he must have perished some time after his disappearance.

Madame Bones turning up with questions for him was an uncomfortable experience, especially as she had turned up while he was meeting with some of his order at the time. He had always tried to keep the names and identities of his order members away from her for the most part other than the obvious ones. It was so that if they were ever caught doing anything questionable, for him or not, he could deny all association between them. When the Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement had turned up he was instantly aware that she had taken in the information she knew about all those in the room and come up with the correct answers about why they were there.

She had then ordered that he clear his office so that they could speak privately and had started to question him about the situation. He could tell by her lines of questioning that she wasn’t going to let go of the situation and that she would be involved until the child was found alive or they had proof of his death. He had almost groaned out loud at the thought, but managed to restrain himself knowing that she would find it suspicious. Once she had left his office, taking the ward monitor with her much to his distress he allowed himself to sigh out loud. The situation just got a lot more complicated, he had hoped to keep Amelia away from the situation, knowing that she was a much more thorough investigator and that she was stringent with the rules. He just hoped that she didn’t think to take the ward monitor to the goblins for analysis.

He thought on the things that he still had to do to make sure that everything was following along in the proper manner so that no suspicion was thrown onto him. Sending Severus had been the most important thing, if he hadn’t sent his spy to see what his old cohorts were up to then there would have been questions asked. He was hoping in a way that when the Death Eaters found out that the child was ‘missing’ that someone would claim credit for the kidnap and he would be off the hook.

He called the order members who had remained for him to finish his meeting back into his office, noting that Severus had already left for Malfoy Manor. He continued to update them on the situation, giving them the information that he believed to be pertinent and then giving them tasks to carry out in their spare time to contribute to the search for the child. He had dismissed them all and they left muttering between them, the only one to remain was Minerva who fixed him with a piercing stare. He could tell that she was trying to see right through him, to find out if he had any other information that he was hiding. Thankfully she wasn’t a Legillimens and his Occlumency shield were incomparable as he had no doubt that if she knew what he was hiding she would make his life a living hell before she handed him over to Amelia herself.

“I warned you leaving him with those muggles was a bad idea Albus, he should have been with a wizarding family, they would have kept him safer.” McGonagall glared at him.

Albus sighed aloud, “Alas my dear, I should have listened to your wisdom. Perhaps we should revisit his placement with a wizarding family when we find him.”

He hoped that eluding to finding the child well and placing him within his own world when that occurred would appease her a little, and it seemed to as she left his office not long afterwards without having threatened him with anything.

The next morning he spoke with Severus over breakfast, the other man informing him that Lucius seemed to have heard nothing, that he was letting on about at least, and that there hadn’t been much of an opportunity for him to contact any of his other sources. He informed him that he would attempt to make discreet enquiries that day by floo and if they still didn’t have any ideas about where the child was he would spend the next day in Knockturn Alley attempting to ferret out any useful information on the street. Albus had agreed, knowing that it would be expected of him and offered to cover the man’s classes while he was in London.

Albus spent two days waiting for something that would let the cat out of the bag, but nothing had come of it. His order had all come back empty handed, just like he knew they would and so far Amelia hadn’t been back to ask him anymore questions for which he was thankful. He was beginning to think that things may plan out the way he was trying to steer them, until he had been delivered the paper that morning.

When the owls had arrived bearing the Daily Prophet that morning he had noticed a ripple of conversation across the hall. Wondering what was happening and if perhaps something had come up in the investigation he reached for the paper. They had been trying to keep the situation out of the news so unless the child had been found there should be nothing about the situation in the paper. He could be worrying for nothing though, the wizarding world was always coming up with some new scandal or other.  
Albus read the headline and knew immediately that it had been Skeeter that had written it, it was the sort of thing she would thrive on writing, and she would have no doubt fought the other reporters to be the one to write the scoop.

Headmaster Hiding our Hero, or Hiding a Secret

He glared at the paper, wondering what exactly she knew on the subject he skimmed the article quickly, hoping that there was nothing too damaging in the report and that she had no proof of anything. He was glad to see that most of the article was just speculation on Skeeter’s part, she had no real information, she was just using the child’s disappearance to boost her own publicity by trying to damage his. He continued to read though the paper and was satisfied that there was nothing else in there that was pertinent to him in any way.

He didn’t comment on the paper, although he could tell that a few of his staff and students seemed to be expecting him to comment in some way or other. He retreated to his office to make some headway on the paperwork that he had been allowing to build up while he had tried to coordinate the search for the child to go the way he needed it to.

He attended both lunch and dinner in the Great Hall, but still made no comment on the newspaper that morning. He was just about to start his dessert when a flock of owls descended upon the great hall, carrying newspapers. He didn’t like the look of that, there was never an evening edition of the Daily Prophet unless something had happened. He took the paper from the owl and unrolled it. Sure enough the paper was branded as a Special Edition and the headline almost screamed out of page at him.

Goblins Confirm Saviours Death  
Special Correspondent  
Rita Skeeter

Earlier this evening this reporter was saddened to hear the results of a meeting between the Head of the Department of Law Enforcement and the Gringotts Goblins in charge of the Potter account. In a stroke of pure genius the Head of the DMLE requested a meeting with the goblins in charge of the Potter account in order to determine the status of the Heir to the accounts.

It is with great regret that this reporter must inform the Wizarding World of the death of our child heron. The goblins confirmed that the last Heir to the Potter family perished on Sunday morning. While the DMLE have not released the exact time of death this reporter wonders whether our saviour died before or after he was reported missing by Headmaster Dumbledore.

Madame Bones released a short statement this evening.

‘We at the Department of Magical Law Enforcement are greatly saddened by this loss of a magical child. We endeavour to investigate this situation fully, to retrieve the answers to how and why this situation occurred and make sure that whoever is responsible is brought to justice.’

We at the Daily Prophet completely agree with the DMLE and ask that anyone with any information regarding this tragic loss contact the DMLE as soon as possible. We seek justice for the child who saved us all only to have his only life taken so young. Now with his parents may Merlin guide his soul.

Albus listened from behind his paper as the Great Hall exploded with noise, the students all talking over each other. His staff were no better, and a lot of them had gone pale. Realising that he had to try and calm his students he stood gathering their attention to him.

“This is a great loss of a magical child. Harry Potter, gone but never forgotten.” He called out over the hall, raising his goblet as he did so. “May Merlin bless his soul.”

“May Merlin Bless his soul.” Echoed back around the hall as the whole room spoke at once. He then gestured to his Heads of Houses who stood and led their houses out of the hall and back to the common rooms, dessert completely forgotten for the evening.


	20. Chapter 20

Ianto Jones smiled as he read the Daily Prophet, things were working out exactly as they had planned them. Amelia had met with the goblins and Harry had been listed as deceased and the Wizarding World was in mourning, and calling for answers at the same time.

Amelia was conducting the investigation into Harry’s death and Dumbledore’s actions regarding his placement with his supposed muggle relatives. Things were not going to work out favourably for the older wizard, especially when the goblins reports were released to the Ministry as a whole rather than just to Amelia. 

He hadn’t helped himself by going to speak to the goblins himself about the Potter account. He had tried to find out what would be happening with the accounts now that Harry was ‘dead’ claiming that he had been the Potter’s executor and would be handling how the accounts were directed now that the family line had died out. Of course it hadn’t worked, the goblins had announced that a new heir had been found for the accounts using the line of ascention and a distant cousin would be entitled to the estate. He had left the bank in anger after the goblins had started to ask him some rather probing questions about his handling of the Potter’s affairs, accounts and heir.

Severus had sent him a letter through their boxes telling him how Dumbledore had arrived back at Hogwarts and spent a good hour or so ranting in his office about the goblins audacity to question him about any of his actions. Phineas Nigellus Black had been all too happy to tell the Slytherin Head the happenings in the Head Office, especially when he realised the magical child involved was a Black in blood. The rest of the staff were taking a wait and see approach to things, watching Dumbledore to find out what was happening and waiting for the results of Amelia’s investigation, none of them really knowing how much Dumbledore had to do with the situation other than the speculation in Rita’s articles.

Minerva McGonagall on the other hand, well she knew that Dumbledore was the one responsible for placing Harry with the muggles that had no doubt murdered him. She was one unhappy woman, and she was making Dumbledore well aware of the matter. Instead of the easy friendship that they had shared for years she was cold towards the man, speaking to him as little as possible if it wasn’t part of her duties. 

Severus had also reported that Lucius had at Severus’ nudging had started his campaign to oust Dumbledore from many of his positions. He was using the fct that Dumbledore obviously never checked up on Harry as way of questioning how thin Dumbledore was obviously stretching himself. If he wasn’t able to check up on one little boy adrift in the muggle world is he really able to be in charge of educating the rest of the Wizarding Britain’s children, while serving on both the Wizengamot and the International Confederation of Wizards.

Severus had written about how Lucius seemed genuinely angry at Harry’s death, despite Harry’s role in his master’s downfall. Lucius had confided in him what Ianto had suspected that Lucius had seen Lily as the sister he never had while they were at Hogwarts. That her son had been killed by muggles and the negligence of Dumbledore infuriated him, and they had gained an ally in him in their quest to bring Dumbledore down and make him pay for his actions.

Ianto was brought out of his thoughts by the sound of his phone alarm going off, he’d set it to go off when he had to leave for work. Jack had already left taking the car with him. Ianto had decided to just apparate to work that morning, saving himself the travel time and allowing him the chance to have breakfast with Harry before leaving him in Tally’s capable hands for the day.

Giving Tally a last few orders before hugging Harry goodbye Ianto then grabbed his coat, knowing that he would need it at some point throughout the day and apparated to the Hub. The first thing he did upon arriving in his little office in the archives was turn on his computer before making his way up to the main levels of the Hub. Amanda was already in the kitchenette making coffee so he carried on up to Jack’s office where Jack seemed to be attempting to make his way through the large stack of files on his desk.

“That pile is done and ready for filing.” Jack stated almost as soon as Ianto stepped through the door, pointing at the largest pile to Ianto’s surprise.

Ianto nodded, “Is there anything sensitive in there? I am going to show Amanda the systems for digital uploads and physical filing this morning.”

“No, it’s mostly recent retrieval reports and paperwork generated from hiring that lot.” Jack replied, looking out at the new members of staff that were already filing in for the morning accepting coffee from Amanda and heading off to their desks.

Ianto picked up the stack of files and headed for the door, calling back over his shoulder to Jack to get a coffee now as neither he nor Amanda would be back in the main area for a few hours at least. Jack was almost right behind him coming down the stairs heading to get some coffee to sustain him for a while longer. Ianto gave the rest of the team the same warning and watched several of them scarper off to the kitchenette after Jack for a refill.

Ianto waited for Amanda to finish up quickly while making them both a cup of coffee while she tidied up the area quickly after ushering the others back out to their desks. Handing her a cup he indicated that she should follow him and he made his way down to the archives, coffee in one hand, files balanced in the other arm.

On their way down to the archives Ianto begin to fill in a bit more information about what Amanda’s role with Torchwood would actually be. He would be passing off a lot of the more menial and mundane tasks to her, like the feeding of the weevils and manning the tourist office. She would also be learning how to navigate the archives, the filing systems he used for artifacts and files, and how to create and maintain their digital records. Ianto would continue to feed Myfanwy, at least for the time being, as he knew how particular the pet pterodactyl could be about people and her own routines.

They had only been down in the archives for less than half hour when Ianto’s com unit chirped, assuming that it was someone informing him that they were going out on a retrieval he answered it. That wasn’t the case though, it was just Gwen asking for coffee, and he informed her that he was busy and that she knew where he kept the instant coffee. In a way he was glad that she had contacted him as it allowed him the opening of bringing such a topic up with Amanda. Although keeping the team caffeinated was part of her role, it wasn’t her only role and she wasn’t subject to the team. Yes she should have coffee ready for them in the morning once she had arrived, at lunchtime and to have coffee waiting for them when they came back from a retrieval, but that she had other tasks that should be prioritised before coffee at other times.

Amanda seemed to pick up what he had been teaching her rather quickly, and she seemed extremely happy that she wasn’t going to be solely at the beck and call of the team like she had been in UNIT. Ianto was determined to not let that happen, he wasn’t going to allow her to become as lost as he had been when he first joined Torchwood 3, especially as it was a much bigger team now.

After a few hours down in the archives training her Ianto felt confident enough that she could be trusted with the filing system, he certainly trusted her with it a lot more than he had ever trusted Owen or Gwen. Determined to let her have free reign after lunch they made their way back into the main hub to check on the team and to order lunch for everyone.

It appeared that everyone had spent the morning so far in the hub, working on reports, programmes, weaponry or perusing medical files. According to Tosh’s prediction programme it was going to be a busy afternoon though, so everyone was happy to take a long lunch break before the madness set in. The rift started firing out all sorts of issues before they had finished and in the end they split into several teams to cover all the rift spikes that had occurred. Amanda and Toshiko were the only two left in the hub while everyone else split into four teams of three, Tara wasn’t working with them that day or she would have stayed in the hub as well.

Kateryn who had only been in for the morning to fill in some paperwork before her shift with the police found herself running through the streets of Cardiff with Ianto and Jodi chasing a source of high alien energy as it moved through the city centre. Amanda was directing them, helping Toshiko who as talented as she was couldn’t give four different teams direction at once, and they soon came across what they were searching for. They also came across Detective Swanson and Kateryn realised that she was running late for her shift, since they had the situation under control she rushed off to work leaving Ianto and Jodi to get what appeared to be a purple rabbit back to the hub.

Ianto had introduced Jodi and Kathy, explaining to the Detective that they had just expanded their team so she would no doubt be meeting some new faces. He preferred that she was forewarned in a less critical situation to save them time when they really needed it. The rabbit was easy to get into a containment box once it had stopped running from them. It had found something that it liked to eat and had stopped to eat, and was easily tempted into the box by Ianto using the nettles it seemed to be favouring.

Arriving back at the hub they found that not everyone had been so easily successful. Tom, Lysander and Gwen were covered in what appeared to be green slime and the two men were glaring at Gwen as they trudged their way towards the showers. Deciding not to get involved Ianto placed the box on the table for Owen and Jack to figure out what the rabbit was and where it was from, and pulled his protégé towards the kitchenette. Amanda helped him make quick work of rustling up some coffee and biscuits for the team and taking them to the boardroom where they could discuss the items they had returned with, or not in some cases, and plan any future action to be taken.

Looking at the trail of green slime that three of his colleagues had left in their wake he sighed, knowing that the day was no doubt going to be a long one. He made a mental note to check in with Tally and make sure that everything was okay with Harry. He was sure that it would be, house elves were great for keeping situations under control, so he was sure that nothing had come up that was out with her capabilities. As the rest of the team filed into the room, some drying off after showers, and took their seats Ianto smiled a little, at least with more bodies they should be able to get through things quicker. He hoped so at least. Hopefully the team would all be able to work well together and become a cohesive unit. He felt a bit bad that he and Jack would be leaving Owen and Toshiko to deal with them all the next day if they didn’t. He supposed that it was a good thing he had been unable to get an appointment with the school until tomorrow.


	21. Chapter 21

Things in the Wizarding World had started to move quickly once the Boy-who-lived was pronounced dead, Amelia Bones had opened an immediate investigation into his living circumstances, the time the goblins had supplied her with, being before Dumbledore had pronounced him missing. She knew of course that it would have been, as it would be the exact moment the ward monitor informed him, the time the adoption ceremony was completed. For the good of the Wizarding World though, and the safety of her godson, it was better that it was known to everyone that Harry Potter was dead. After all, if it hadn’t been for the actions of Jack and Ianto it probably wouldn’t have been long before he was dead, the abusive muggles certainly wouldn’t have cared one way or another if the child had perished in their care as long as their neighbours didn’t find out.

It was Amelia’s intention to make the muggles who had hurt her godson and the Headmaster who had placed him there to face justice for what they had put the child through. Obviously she had no body to work with, but in their world the goblins testimony was good enough when it came to proving life or death of anyone who held an account with the bank. Her investigation had the muggles for child abuse and as the child they had approved was so high profile the Minister had approved her trialling the muggles in front of the Wizengamot. Their own child had been placed in the muggle childcare system and she had used her own contacts within the muggle law enforcement systems to have it shown that the Dursleys had been arrested for child abuse and were being held without bail for their trials. Once they had been found guilty they would either be sentenced to Azkaban or given to the goblins, the goblins would no doubt take custody of them as they had found records of payments to the Dursley family for Harry’s care, money that had not been spent on the child. The goblins were rather unhappy that the muggles had been taking the child’s money and then hurting him, it was dishonourable to them, children were sacred. It was likely that the muggles would be sentenced to work in the mines in Gringotts in order to repay the money.

Amelia was having a harder time pinning any of the responsibility for the abuse on Dumbledore, even though she had the evidence of the mental tampering he had done to the muggle authorities it wouldn’t be enough to get a trial in front of the Wizengamot to prosecute him. Albus Dumbledore had too many supporters for that, it would be political suicide for her to move against him with the evidence she had at the moment. Instead she was prepared to wait the long game, and Jack and Ianto had agreed with her assessment of the situation. Until Dumbledore began to lose some of his popularity nothing would stick to him.

Rita Skeeter was a big help in that regard, she was digging through the man’s past with a fine tooth comb, looking for anything that could be used to discredit him. It was obvious to many that the man was responsible for what happened to the Potter child, but nothing was being done about it. Skeeter knew for definite that he was involved, the file of information she had been passed by the goblins outlined that to her perfectly, and she would do her best to make others see that he was a man that couldn’t be trusted with the welfare of children.

Lucius Malfoy was another concerned citizen who was doing his best to see Dumbledore ousted from his current positions. He had been meeting with the other members of the Board of Governors, using Skeeter’s articles as a basis for why the man shouldn’t be in a position of control of the children of the Wizarding World. While there were still a few supporters of the Headmaster on the Board he was unable to get him removed, but he did manage to get an approval for an audit of Hogwarts to take place. The audit would go through everything, financials, teachers, detention records and grades were only a few areas that they would be investigating. Hopefully the audit would show Dumbledore in a negative light in a way that would allow him to force the other members who were holding out to realise that the man was a danger to their children. Lucius knew that he had no desire to allow his son to study under the old man’s leadership, but he doubted Narcissa would allow him to send Draco to Durmstrang as it was so far away.

Cornelius Fudge, fool he may be, had realised that there was a storm on the horizon as a result of the child’s death, and that he would need to have an active role in doing something about the situation if he didn’t want to be swept along in the tide of people that were held responsible. He knew that he personally hadn’t done anything to put the child in the situation he had been in, but then again that was exactly it, he hadn’t done anything. He hadn’t insisted on any checks on the child, he hadn’t sent anyone from the child welfare department to check up on the child or his guardians, he had just trusted Albus Dumbledore and his word that the child was fine. Knowing that Madame Bones would have the investigation into the child’s death well in hand he made his appeal to the public in general, aiming to gain a sense of solidarity with them that would help him stay in office. He spent his time arranged a memorial ceremony for the child, that the public would be able to attend, he could show his remorse for the child’s death, remorse that was shared by the majority of the Wizarding World, regardless of whether they were dark, light or neutral. Magical children are precious and should be treasured, the senseless death of a magical child at the hands of muggles was horrendous.

Albus Dumbledore was having a terrible time of it, everything had gone wrong since the Potter child had died, and he now had to try and do some massive damage control. He knew that Madame Bones was investigating the Dursleys and to a small extent himself, but he wasn’t too worried about that, there was no evidence that he knew anything about the abuse so the only thing that would come up would be his placing the child with the Dursley’s in the first place, but that was just him following the actions that Lily and James had stated in the will that the goblins had read on the 1st of November. That the will was a fake was something that wouldn’t come to light as he was the only one to know about the will being submitted on the day they died, the person from the Potter family lawyers who submitted the will was no longer living, having had a bad splinching accident a few years ago.

The main issues that had come up for Albus were the hate campaign that Rita Skeeter seemed to be starting with him as the main target and Lucius Malfoy’s campaign to see him removed. There were things in his past that he would rather stayed there and he knew that if the reporter kept digging around in his life she could unearth them and expose him. That was the last thing he needed, if she managed to find out about Gellert and his past his whole image could be destroyed, people would start to question his defeat of the dark wizard and would find out that he had been nothing but a man with aspirations of power just like Grindewald and Voldemort.

Malfoy was just as big a problem, the other man having managed to get an audit done of Hogwarts, there were a few issues that were going to come to light because of that. They Board would no doubt force him to exorcise Binns and sack Trelawney, both members of staff he kept around for specific reasons. If they had a decent history teacher then there wouldn’t be as much conflict in the Wizarding World as people would learn from the past, and if they had a true accounting of some of the history certain plans of his would fall apart. For instance if the world knew that Slytherin and Gryffindor were brothers and got on well the rivalry between the two houses would diminish and that could ruin many of his plans. Trelawney he needed close to keep her ‘safe’ to perpetuate the idea of his prophecy being true when the Dark Lord returned, although he would need to start moulding the Longbottom child to fulfil the role of Saviour. 

There was just so much to do now that the Potter child had perished, if it wouldn’t draw attention to him he would try and get a chance to speak with the Dursleys on his own in order to curse them for the trouble they were causing him now. They just had to ruin all his plans by killing the child, they were really the most useless muggles he had ever come across. Albus would just have to weather the storm, it was trying to unseat him, but it couldn’t be allowed to. He would do as was expected of him, and things would go back to normal. He would speak at the trial of the Dursleys, explain his placement of the child based on the Potter will and attend the memorial and show remorse for the senseless death of a magical child. Most would soon begin to ignore the papers and the slander in them and see him as the benevolent Headmaster once again, he just needed to get through the audit intact.


End file.
